Brand owners have always wanted to have a mechanism to dissuade the violators who violate their brand and comprehensively protect their own intellectual property. There is a need to look beyond the pure play brand protection, as it is understood today & create an eco-system with solid processes, where the brands & the organizations, are comprehensively protected against unfair competition.

There is a need to look beyond the two methodologies adopted for brand protection of vanilla enforcement actions:

a) Criminal enforcement actions leading to a raid & seizure through law enforcement agencies like the police/ customs

b) Civil enforcement actions, again leading to raid & seizure through a court monitored local commissioner.

The www.brandsandfakes.com approach: 3 Tier Model

For the first time www.brandsandfakes.com has brought a new methodology supported by innovative use of technology to increase the effectiveness of enforcement actions in India and globally.Define a new paradigm to take the brand protection space to the next pedestal in managing unfair competition and creating a mix of pro-active & reactive strategies for 360 degree protection.

1. The Battle (Enforcement Actions)
2. Swift Actions
3. Campaigns &Engagements

The Battle (Enforcement Actions) : Only for select high impact cases demanding an effective harder action, a civil or criminal action is under taken. Like any other battle the rules of the enforcement are also changed. It needs more technology intervention to have effective controls and visibility in the process. An online LAMS ( leads& action management system) being used by Brands & Fakes and also adopted by many large organizations is very effective for this. It is also recommended only 30-40% violations are taken for such actions

Swift Actions: Large number of “not-so-serious” violators are acted against by using “ Swift Actions”. These actions are executed by “On Street” layer with support from the field investigation team, local social groups, brand teams (if required). The output of these actions is an undertaking, which is collected from the violators for not doing any future violation. This action is perceived to be a positive action as against the enforcement actions that are rather harsh in certain cases.

The impact of these actions can be directly measured as, the entity involved is encouraged to sell the genuine products, thereby resulting in improved sales.

Campaigns &Engagements :These enforcement actions are executed by use of extensive campaign and capacity building. The objective of such activities is not to spend money/ effort in gathering evidences & data on violators but, to run activities which dissuade violators to undertake any such violating action. Some of the activities being done here are typical BTL activities, messages on SMS, email or other digital channels for selected trade geographies, online campaigns on social media, trainings to authorized channels & internal staff of brand owners. Road shows and sanitization workshops.

The impact of this three tier brand protection gives just about the same results which typically are received from a brand promotion activity but it is addressed to the trade channels. Typical impacts of 3 Tier model are -Increase in the revenue, increased profitability, enhanced consumer confidence & satisfaction, motivated and controlled business channel operations.

Something which is started to happen now is linking the costs associated with these three tiers of brand protection to actual benefit and a success based payment methodology.

The 3 Tier Model

• Dissuading violators by innovative engagements
  • SMS campaigns
  • Digital communication – email, social apps etc.
  • Trainings & capacity building – Internal and external entities (employees, channels, government agencies like customs etc.
  • Online campaigns
  • Social media plans & engagements
  • Road shows
• Undertaking compliance actions by alternative methods
  • For “not so serious violators” / serial offenders
  • Getting undertakings
  • Executed by empowered team of professionals, NGO’s and “on street” Lawyer
  • Innovatively utilizing local influencers – industry/ market & trade associations/ social groups/ media.
• Criminal & Civil Actions
  • Supported by Best Practices LAMS
  • Detailed investigations/ evidence gathering
  • Raids and seizure
  • Law suits