We often tie ourselves in knots trying to demonstrate the value of trade media. Just how many people actually flick through a magazine? What percentage of a website’s views are their true business audience? And if they are reading, do they ever actually act on it?
We’ve faced these questions dozens of times, both on the media side and now on the agency side. While trade titles should never stop proving the scale of their audience, we believe there’s a far more exciting way to answer the question.
Against a backdrop of noise, “fake news,” and generative AI, trust is in short supply. The landscape has never been more crowded for the trade, with more brands fighting for retail attention than ever before. So, where do stockists go to find out who they should really trust?
Working with our partners at Mighty & Kin, we decided to find out:
75% of retailers place trade media in their top three most trusted sources for industry news and product inspiration
Only 58% said the same for the suppliers themselves.
We already know from the consumer world that brands advertising in trusted, premium media environments inherit that trust, significantly increasing how reliably they are viewed (Newsworks, 2024).
We became the first to prove FMCG trade media boosts trust, too
We asked retailers whether they recalled reading articles about nine FMCG companies across trade media spanning brands represented by Mighty & Kin, brands we partner with at Brunswick North, and others handled by other agencies.
The data was undeniable. In every single case, retailers were vastly more likely to view a brand as a trusted market leader if they also reported seeing trade media coverage about them.
- The average trust uplift across all brands was +131%.
- For the brands specifically represented by Mighty & Kin and Brunswick North, that uplift jumped to +159%.
So if you want to make trust your benchmark for brand success in the trade, let’s talk!