“Human Social Network” Still Most Important When Shoppers Consider New Products

A nationwide survey of 60,000 consumers conducted by market research firm TNS has found that four out of every five shoppers are open to trying new products, while 68 percent said a consumer-voted award was a better recommendation for a new product than the opinion of an expert. The insights from the survey were presented at the 2011 Product of the Year USA awards, where innovation across 22 product categories was recognized by the surveyed shoppers. Supermarket Guru Phil Lempert noted that consumers are smarter and spend more intelligently than ever before and, despite the growth of product reviews shared on mobile devices and social networks, “it is still the ‘human’ social network that is the most powerful.”