In this fourth wave of Media Trust Tracking research we examined how much “trust” is engendered when it comes to individual TV news brands.
Respondents
for the February 2020 wave included 4,624 viewers (balanced for gender and political affiliation, drawn from the nine U.S. Census Regions) who rated brands they watched regularly (3+ times a week) via
the Brand Keys Emotional Engagement Brand Analysis, which is conducted by Brand Keys, Inc.
Brand Keys found the following wave-to-wave trust assessments:
Anecdotally, the BBC’s increase was
related to its Brexit coverage. FOX News, MSNBC, and CNN increases were associated with the impeachment and trial coverage, and the Bloomberg increase was linked by viewers to Mr. Bloomberg’s
ads for his presidential run.
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As a huge percentage of the news coverage dealt with President Trump, Brand Keys was again interested to see how much “trust” viewers
had in the President, versus their regularly-watched TV brands. In the most recent wave, overall respondent “trust” levels rated Mr. Trump at 15% (-1%). By political affiliation, Democrats
rated Mr. Trump 3% (-5%), Independents 9% (-5%), and Republicans 32% (+7%).
Methodology
Brand Keys uses an independently-validated research methodology that
fuses emotional and rational aspects of the categories, identifies four path-to-purchase behavioral drivers for the category-specific Ideal, and identifies the values (including “trust” as
it is characterized in a particular category) that form the components of each driver, along with their percent-contribution to engagement, loyalty, and profitability.
These
assessments have been proven to be leading-indicators of consumer behavior, identifying activities 12 to 18 months before they appear in traditional brand tracking or are articulated in focus
groups.