Letters and Comment

Winning the trust of the 'digital natives'

The kids quoted in your article, Talking to the Download Generation (issue no. 2/2007), represent today's "digital natives." These are the young people who grew up with mobile phones in their pockets, who are used to getting whatever content they want, however and whenever they want it - and for free.

Edelman, a global public relations firm, recently commissioned research on 18-34 year olds in the U.K. and France, exploring attitudes and issues of trust towards the entertainment industry. Key amongst those findings: 41% of those surveyed in the U.K., and 54% in France, do not trust entertainment companies to provide "value for money."

When communicating messages of anti-piracy to this key demographic, companies need to address their potential top-of-mind question: "What value will I get if I buy something that I could download for free?"

The answer and corresponding messages of 'value for money' can be articulated in a myriad of ways - such as the quality of the entertainment experience via better picture and sound, or the peace of mind knowing that you are not exposing your computer to viruses or your family to pornography, gateways opened through peer-to-peer file-sharing. In focus groups conducted in years past on behalf of clients, we found it was the parents' experience of having to buy a new family computer due to virus infestation that often led them to ban their children from illegal downloading.

The good news is that 69% of respondents in the U.K. and 59% in France said they trusted the entertainment industry to make content widely and legally available online. That's a significant departure from not so long ago.

So if the first phase of education is to make consumers aware of the availability of legal content, then phase two is where the industry can build trust by leading on issues that these consumers really care about: changing business models to serve new technologies, leading the distribution revolution and demonstrating that "value for money" proposition.

Eight years of studying institutional trust has taught that institutions of all kinds have to listen to and participate in the public discussion of their actions, products and reputations. The entertainment industry is no different.

From Gail Becker, Edelman, President...