No B.S Friday: Well they didn’t go to plan…
I saw a funny study the other day that said that anti-piracy ads never worked.
I don’t know if you remember the ads that used to go before videos from the video store. The one’s that said, “You wouldn’t steal a car… you wouldn’t steal a handbag… etc.”
Anyway, turns out they never worked.
Not only that, they actually increased piracy! The anti-piracy ads made more pirates.
(This is a warning for everyone in the persuasion and negotiation business. )
A study by France’s ESSCA School of Management reveals why anti-piracy campaigns have failed to stop or slow digital theft. The study looked at how these commercials failed so miserably through the lens of behavioural economics.
One of the researchers’ main focuses was that the widely-accepted belief that the more arguments put forward to support something, the more likely the audience will eventually agree may not have the desired influence.
In trying to compare illegally downloading content and burning DVDs to stealing cars, TVs and handbags, the impact of piracy is lost in the mix and the stronger arguments become less effective.
This is an interesting point. In the world of persuasion, more is not better. Never sell past the sale.
If you have a strong argument to make, don’t think you’re doing yourself any favours by tacking on extra weaker arguments.
It doesn’t work by weight.
Weak arguments dilute the power of strong ones.
But it’s the ‘encouragement effect that I found really interesting.
The researchers found by constantly reinforcing the message that piracy was out there – and a big enough deal to put an ad at the start of every video in Blockbuster – then it’s practically normal.
The piracy ads ‘normalised’ piracy.
It’s kind of like if I put up a sign in my neighbourhood that said,
“It’s wrong to steal the unguarded chocolate from Jon’s garage.”
Now, everyone would probably agree with that. Very wrong, they would say.
But the key takeaway is not going to be the ethics or right and wrong. It’s the fact that there’s unguarded chocolate just sitting in my garage. That’s what people are going to lock on to.
And if you haven’t made a convincing case that stealing it would be wrong – as the video ads failed to do – then all you’ve done is advertised and celebrated the practice.
And that’s how the anti-piracy ads ended up making more pirates.
So, would anything have worked?
The researchers reckon that they would have done better if the ads had outlined the dangers of malware, highlighted criminal penalties, drew attention to the qualitative differences in pirated videos, or got popular actors to make an emotional plea to viewers.
(None of that’s rocket science.)
Anyway, to me, those ads always seemed like some marketing exec had a brain-fart and thought the ads would be ‘clever’.
They sort of were.
But clever never sells.
JG.