Being a more recent campaign, Knock off Nigel has mostly comprised of pre-feature film adverts or fliers that come inside the DVD box. The website to accompany is an interactive Flash piece, that maintains the styling of retro 70s. With this I associate the sort of dodgy dealer, or Del Boy type character.
Interestingly, the site features a number of techniques to try and gain an audience, and encourage them to partake in the Knock Off campaign, for example downloading the spoof ringtone.s These are quite humorous in the sound and content, but the message is clear and strong. Through labelling him as "cheap" it is easy to feel that knock off Nigel is not liked for his actions. What I felt odd though is that most piracy is now done through downloading for free. The ringtones here you just download for free too. I was expecting to have to pay or visit a licensed distriutor and so this did feel a little odd in the grand scheme of the message being pushed.
The advert on the site features a general mass shaming of Nigel. This is good I think as people regularly now visit youtube to see a video that is being virally spread around. The song featured again is comedic in it's production, but features the stronger more confrontational language.
Another part of the site invites you to email your friends sending a doctored photo of Nigel, but with your friend's photograph. Again, I can see deeper connotations behind this than the humorous, comedic value presented on screen. People most likely will email this to friends who they know to download and have pirate DVDs. This emailing option too reaffirms the naming and shaming, but on a personal level, amongst us. Who are we to know that the addresses entered aren't being monitored?
The best interactive feature I found was the interactive test. People will most likely do this out of curiosity, to see what the end result will say. The involving nature of doing a test will please younger visitors, sort of in the same vein as answering questions in a quiz, or finding out which celebrity you are most like that feature often in magazines.
Personally, I don't find the styling appropriate for an anti-piracy campaign of today, where it's all about broadband speeds, mp3 and digital downloads of films. This, however may be more a case of the designers being told to cater to a wider, perhaps older audience?
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This campaign should be familiar to anyone whose been to the cinema or watched a DVD within the last couple of years.
Initially, I found I preferred this sort of more hard-hitting, gritty approach. It feels more appropriate for the topic of stealing. The music is loud and punchy, the messages that appear on screen are simple to follow. This definitely has it's place for dealing with the mass piracy culprits who are seriously flaunting and breaking the law.
However, for the rest of us, the general public, I found the online representation provided by the Motion Picture Associations page on Content Protection to be more effective.
A simple page on first glances, admittedly appearing a little text heavy, with only two poster thumbnails for this, their anti-piracy campaign. The first thing that hits you is that the site is a little out-dated, in it's styling, but also, it could purvey a feeling of lacking importance. Nonetheless, after looking at the pages, there is definite potential and it would only take some re-imagining of the visuals to craft a great anti-piracy site for the general public.
The links provided are all good - they offer information on copyright, and not just for the US, but international too. Another highly worthwhile link is providing legal options to get hold of the content. This to me is something that seems obvious, but quite a few sites lack this. What's great too is that it isn't all pay for content sites, but for example, ABCs online video player. Another of the links provides the option to Report Piracy, but finally a Frequently Asked Questions pages is what people will find most useful. Copyright in all it's legal bureaucracy can be confusing, so simple answers to common questions such as proves the most informative and useful:
What are the penalties for illegally downloading/uploading movies on the Internet?
Again, it can be seen that legal options are being pushed and I think this is the right way to do things. Common criticisms of the Industry's copyright claims was that they failed to set up the mechanisms to distribute content digitally, and quickly in the first place, henceforth the pirates were left to do it.
I like also that they handle the topic of copyright in a colloquial way, as in, a way that you and I would talk. Furthermore, they are aware of the criticism that people throw at claims such as the industry lost $18B last year and say that these aren't over the top estimations. The overall tone and register of these pages just appear to create a more reasonable relationship with the public, rather than the hard-faced dictator style.
Where I think this site could improve mostly is in it's visual presentation. They seem to have all the relevant information, and perhaps with a little siphoning could have it appeasing a web reader's attention span. Through use of imagery, a clearer navigation system and some sort of independence web-wise (i.e. not just another page of a much larger site) then this could really work. The links they provide to alternate Copyright centric sites certainly prove that good visuals can tie up with informing people of the correct and legal way to watch content:
I love the styling of this. The logo and the feel of the site, through the greens, the blacks, and the imagery used give it a fresh and modern feeling. Most importantly, it imparts to the audience that the Industry behind this are relevant and "with it", in the 21st Century.
IN ALL, I can definitely take useful pointers to carry through to my own designs from looking at these sites: the visual styling, the actual content, and to pay real attention to the tone with which to speak to the user.
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