Research shows that campaigns promoting video content subscriptions by saying 'piracy is a crime, so watch it legally' are counterproductive
Anti-piracy messages are often used to advertise streaming services for movies, TV dramas, anime, etc., such as 'Are you watching illegal pirated versions? Let's watch it properly with a legitimate service.' Ignacio Redondo, a professor of marketing at
Incentivizing SVOD Platform Subscription Intention through Tiered Discounts and Anti-piracy Messages[v1] | Preprints.org
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202409.0420/v1
Threatening Anti-Piracy Messaging Fails to Stimulate Intent to Subscribe * TorrentFreak
https://torrentfreak.com/threatening-anti-piracy-messaging-fails-to-stimulate-intent-to-subscribe-240908/
In a paper published on September 4, 2024, Redondo et al. published 'Motivating Streaming Subscription Services Through Tiered Discounts and Anti-Piracy Messages,' they analyzed ways to acquire and retain subscribers in an increasingly competitive video content market. According to the paper, the video content market is facing high churn rates and significant profit losses due to piracy, and measures to retain users are needed.
Among these, subscription platforms often provide incentives to users such as 'advertising levels,' 'loyalty levels,' and 'anti-piracy messages.' It is believed that users who dislike advertising will be attracted to 'plans based on advertising levels,' while those who use the service enthusiastically will be interested in 'plans based on loyalty levels, such as continued use.'
In addition, it is believed that anti-piracy messages are effective for people who are sensitive to justice and who are easily scared of criminal punishment. Past research has shown that some pirate users are not 'criminals who want to get everything for free' but 'potential customers who illegally download when legal content is not available,' so an approach that criticizes piracy and guides them to legitimate services may be effective.
Survey results show that pirate users would pay to get content legally if they had the option - GIGAZINE
by picjumbo.com
Redondo and his colleagues conducted a nationwide survey of 883 subjects who subscribe to streaming services in Spain to find out whether they would be interested in subscribing to a fictitious new platform they had created called Flixio. The main objectives of the study were to investigate which of two types of tiered discount plans and two types of anti-piracy messages would increase the willingness to subscribe, and how each type of incentive and the evaluation of the content within the service contributed to the willingness to subscribe.
First, for the incentive of 'gradual advertising discounts,' it was found that users' opinions about advertising in general predicted their satisfaction quite accurately. For example, in a plan that offers 'discounts in exchange for ads,' users who are positive about ads will receive a discount and increase their satisfaction. On the other hand, users who strongly dislike ads can hide ads by subscribing to a slightly more expensive plan without a discount, so they can choose the appropriate plan according to their preferences. The paper pointed out that 'online subscription services can improve their relationship with users by offering gradual advertising discounts that suit the specific characteristics of different users, and users can be satisfied with customized, more cost-effective services.'
Next, they used a loyalty-based approach, for example, offering discounts based on the user's loyalty level, instead of the monthly fee of 10,000 yen per month for a monthly membership, which is cheaper per month for an annual membership of 10,000 yen per year. As with advertising, they found that offering different discount formats based on the user's loyalty level made it easier for light users to join and strengthened the relationship with heavy users. Redondo added, 'Furthermore, rewarding highly loyal users has been well-proven to strengthen user loyalty.'
In addition to offering discount plans, they are also considering ways to appeal to users by displaying anti-piracy messages, telling them, 'Piracy is bad, so let's watch it on a subscription service.' The 'social messages' among the anti-piracy messages explain the impact of piracy, such as 'piracy makes workers in the film industry work for free' and 'watching interesting works in pirated versions will prevent interesting works from being created in the future.' According to researchers, this type of message is only understood by people who are highly sensitive to justice, so it is difficult to produce the expected effect.
Another type of message approach is a 'threatening message' such as 'piracy is a crime' or 'copyright infringement will be punished legally.' As a result of the survey, it was found that threatening messages did not increase the willingness to register for legal platforms. The researchers believe that the reason for this is that 'threatening messages that it is a crime may have the effect of deterring piracy, but they do not motivate people to purchase genuine products or register for services,' and 'particularly strong threatening messages may have backfired by causing distrust and dislike toward the message sender.' There is a psychological term called ' psychological reactance, ' which states that people have a tendency to resist when their freedom is restricted, and it has been analyzed that the results of this study also showed this tendency.
As a result of the study, the researchers concluded that 'tiered discount plans' are effective in enticing users to subscription platforms, while 'messages urging users not to use piracy' are ineffective. 'The findings of this study could help shape more satisfying services for users and ultimately more profitable incentives for platforms,' Redondo said.
Related Posts:
in Web Service, Posted by log1e_dh