That’s one of the key findings of a British Vogue survey of 2,328 respondents for its 2013 Business Report. It examined the impact and influence of paid advertising, brand-owned channels and recommendations via PR or word-of-mouth.
Face-to-face recommendations topped the tables as the most trusted source of influence at 69 percent, while brand-owned channels were only trusted by 47 percent of respondents.
The YouGov survey, commissioned by British Vogue, examines the power of print glossies (Vanity Fair and the U.K. editions of Vogue, Tatler, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, In Style and Grazia), magazine Web sites and their digital editions, and their relationship with the reader in today’s media landscape.
It found that advertising engagement across the various magazine platforms is high, with increases versus 2011, the last time a business report was commissioned.
Amongst monthly readers, print ad engagement is 93 percent (compared to 91 percent in 2011); ad engagement for digital editions has increased to 71 percent; and Web sites show similarly strong growth, with ad engagement up to 71 percent from 60 percent.
The findings also found that social media usage remains static compared to 2011, although and a third of respondents now use Pinterest, while Foursquare usage has doubled.