Jugend-Verbraucher-Dialog

What could modern, youth-appropriate consumer information look like? The Jugend-Verbraucher-Dialog project seeks to answer this question by inviting young people to develop new communication channels for consumer information.

In today’s globalising world, young people are faced with an ever-larger range of consumer products. Meanwhile, they want to make choices that reflect their personal lifestyles and consumption habits, which are shaped by issues like environmental protection, climate change and sustainability. Thanks to widespread digitalisation, they can access a sheer infinite number of commercial products faster and more easily.

Despite this permanent commercial onslaught, there is little in the way of information that succeeds in teaching young consumers about their rights while using appropriate language. This is a gap that Jugend-Verbraucher-Dialog seeks to close. It invites young people to design new, youth-appropriate communication channels for consumer information and to fill them with content that meets high quality standards while using a language, format and aesthetic that speaks to a younger target audience. In design thinking workshops, the young participants will discuss potential channels, distribution platforms, and the design, language and CI to be used when creating the information.

The project’s core target audience is young people aged 16 to 21 to whom the information is to be transmitted largely via social networks in order to improve their awareness of their rights as consumers and of the importance of critical consumption.

By young people for young people – that’s the principle behind this three-year project. A decentralised young team of editors both with and without editorial experience, supported by IJAB staff and design and communication agencies, attend online training courses to acquire the expertise they need to develop content in five relevant subject areas (digital life; body and health; sustainable consumption; travel and mobility; and housing, rent and finance). The content will continue to be updated after publication, reflecting any comments and questions that are received from young consumers.

The project is bookended by two large-scale events. At a kick-off event in June 2021, the project channels will be launched officially by the young editors’ team, the design thinking workshop participants and other interested young people. Together with representatives of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection and various partners in the consumer protection field, young people will present the channels and discuss relevant issues with the audience. Once the three-year project has been completed, a young consumer camp will take place in June 2023, with attendees discussing the experiences made with the project and developing visions for a youth-appropriate consumer policy.

The Jugend-Verbraucher-Dialog project (2021-2023) receives funding from the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection and is implemented by IJAB.