• by Peggy Chaudhry , Op-Ed Contributor, December 12, 2016

How do consumers around the globe respond to advertising campaigns aimed at discouraging the purchase of counterfeit goods? I’ve studied the manufacture and sale of counterfeit and pirated consumer goods and intellectual property for all of my academic career and decided to find out with a survey of 1,786 consumers.

I focused on countries in “hot spots” of purchasing counterfeit and pirated goods in Brazil, China, India, Russia, as well as the United States to see what messages in anti-counterfeiting campaigns might decrease their purchase of counterfeits. Consumers voted overwhelmingly for campaigns that used fear and/or links to organized crime across all markets as the most effective.

The Brazilians, Chinese, Indians and Russians saw the most value in illustrating the negative association between organized crime and counterfeit trade to decreasing their purchase intent for bogus goods—for instance, who wants to support that type of crime by buying fake sunglasses? This is a key message of INTERPOL's current anti-counterfeiting campaign, “Turn Back Crime,” launched in 2015. But U.S. consumers did not see any of the anti-counterfeiting messages as significantly deterring their demand for illicit goods. 

And the former anti-piracy campaign, “You Can Click But You Can’t Hide,” used by the Motion Picture Association of America had mixed reactions. The fear of prosecution in this campaign was perceived as effective for Brazilian, Indian and Chinese consumers, but their Russian and U.S. counterparts were unconvinced.

Can using a role model like Taylor Swift suppress consumer demand for fakes? Taylor Swift’s “To Apple, Love Taylor” blog admonished Apple that “We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.” Although Taylor was not denouncing music piracy, this thought-leader forced a complete reversal from Apple in 24 hours. Could a role model like Taylor influence these global consumers to respect copyrights by sending a tweet to millions of followers? According to my findings, Brazilians, Chinese and Indians consumers were swayed by a role model like Swift, but Russians and U.S. consumers remained skeptical.

For decades, marketers have been studying the influence of peers on a person’s purchase decision—we all can relate to the pressure of a friend or family member on our final purchase decision for the right smartphone—even agonizing over whether to buy the new iPhone in “rose gold” or “space gray” may have involved a consultation with a best friend. Can this type of social stimuli restrain a consumer in Brazil, China or India from purchasing counterfeits? Yes—these consumers all rated peer pressure as negatively influencing their consumption of counterfeit goods. But not their Russian and U.S. counterparts—these consumers found this to be a dubious ploy.

Did survey respondees see any value in the use of education to create a more knowledgeable consumer that condemns counterfeits—not everyone knowingly buys fakes—and many consumers are duped into obtaining illicit goods. The hijacking of access to computers and their digital content in order to be ransomed back to consumers or organizations is considered to be one of the leading threats of internet crime. Even the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation targets youth to be more digitally savvy in its “Safe Online Surfing” program.

These consumers had mixed viewpoints on education—the Russians were the most cynical on this tactic, followed by U.S. consumers. Yet, the Brazilian, Chinese and Indian consumers all considered education effectual and could be taught to be smarter consumers.