LONDON: Blogs are becoming a force to be reckoned with as a means of advertising products, according to a survey.

An Ipsos MORI poll found that the Internet journals are a more trusted source of information than TV advertising or e-mail marketing.

But among their European counterparts, Britons are the least switched on to web logs.

The French are far more savvy, the survey of 2,200 Europeans found. About 90 per cent of people surveyed there said they were familiar with blogs, nearly twice as many as the number of Britons interviewed (50 per cent).

But the rest of Europe is barely logged-on when it comes to online diaries either. The Spanish did only marginally better than Britons in recognising the term blog (51 per cent), while in Germany, 55 per cent were blog-aware, and in Italy, 58 per cent had heard of the term.

Ipsos MORI found a direct link between blogs, or user-generated content, and people's intentions to buy goods or services.

The blog is replacing word of mouth for endorsing or condemning a product or service.

About a third of those Europeans questioned said they had been put off making a purchase after reading negative comments on the Internet from customers or other web-users, while 52 per cent said they had been persuaded to buy after a positive review on a blog. Get it right, and blogs could be a boost to companies and even save on their advertising and marketing budgets.

Blogs, or weblogs, are a more trusted source of information (24 per cent) than television advertising (17 per cent) and email marketing (14 per cent), the survey commissioned by Hotwire, a technology public relations consultancy, said. But they still lag behind newspapers (30 per cent).

Gareth Deere, head of technology research at Ipsos MORI, said: “We all trust people's opinion in the real world. Now we've proven the same link online, and it's having a major impact on people's buying behaviour.”—Reuters