3 Strategies to Help Protect Your Brand from Being Counterfeited
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. There should, however, be a caveat to this expression — when your brand is the target of counterfeiting.
If your brand has been the victim of counterfeiting before, you will know that it feels anything but flattering. Beyond the emotional stress, counterfeiting can have massive financial implications for your brand and company as a whole.
So rather than deal with the fall out after you’ve been targeted, you should implement some preventative strategies to help protect your brand in the first place. To borrow another expression — prevention is better than cure.
Below, we’ve listed 3 strategies that will help prevent your brand from being counterfeited.
1. Register Your Trademark
Registering your trademark is a fundamental step any and all brands should take to help prevent counterfeiting. Going through the process of trademarking your brand will not only help to establish your legal rights, it will also provide you with avenues for legal recourse if you should find your products have been knocked off.
There are a number of important considerations you should take into account when registering your trademark. For instance, you should register your trademark both in your home country, and also in foreign countries as well — taking particular care to do so in those countries you do business in. Trademark registration in China should also be prioritized, given that 86% of counterfeit goods are sourced from China.
2. Sign Up With simplyBrand
One of the most straightforward and novel ways to prevent your brand from being counterfeited is to sign up with simplyBrand. simplyBrand takes the hassle out of detecting instances of online counterfeiting by handling this whole process for you. Drawing on sophisticated AI and machine learning technology, simplyBrand constantly acquires new data and verifies counterfeit product information to protect your brand from counterfeiting efforts.
The reason simplyBrand’s solution to counterfeiting works is because it offers complete support for brands that want to prevent their products from counterfeiting. We use a combination of sophisticated technology and crowd sourced data to constantly monitor the web for instances of counterfeiting.If there are any counterfeits detected, simplyBrand will provide you with all of the vital details so that you can respond efficiently and effectively.
Considering that counterfeiters are often able to succeed because companies fail to take timely action (or any action at all!), using simplyBrand’s solution is a key strategy to take preventive action early on, and also to communicate to counterfeiters that there will be repercussions if they target your company.
3. Invest in Anti-Counterfeiting Technology
You may have heard news that an increasing number of brands have started to integrate anti-counterfeiting technology in or on their products, such as RFID chips. RFID chips are indeed an advanced way to fight counterfeiting, and some companies now use them as their primary preventative solution.
However, there are some challenges that come part and parcel with using RFID chips. As we highlight in our whitepaper, investing in RFID technology is incredibly expensive. The high financial costs force companies to absorb the costs by some means — usually by bumping up the price of their products. This can be off putting for customers who may be unwilling to pay a premium (especially on an already expensive luxury product).
Another challenge RFID technology presents is that it may require personal information from the buyer of the product — of which is not permissible by some countries or regions. As Fashionista notes, there are certain restrictions placed on the use of RFID technology in some U.S. states, and over in Europe, disclosure to clients about the use of RFID chips is required by law.
We explored the above three strategies to consider implementing to protect your brand from counterfeiting. Each offers unique benefits, and can even be used in combination with one another. So the question remains, which will you choose?
Do you know of any other strategies to help prevent brands from being counterfeited? Let us know in the comments below!
About simplyBrand
simplyBrand is an advanced ecosystem that draws on artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and crowdsourcing to eliminate counterfeit products in digital commerce. To learn more, visit the simplyBrand website.
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