Managing budget for brand protection activities have always been an issue for most of the brand owners. Generally, brand owners have specific budgets earmarked for brand protection, which is either a part of the legal budget or part of the brand promotion budget. While it makes sense to have the brand protection budget as a subset of the promotion budget (as it delivers similar results on revenue, position, customer loyalty etc), but it may be a good idea to use the statutory provisions of CSR spends for brand protection.
As per the Companies Act 2013 and specific provisions for the large corporates in India, a part of the profit is mandatory to be spent on the CSR activities. The type of activities and provisions of the CSR spend can be used for various intellectual property right investigations, which will further help the consumers to fight against the ill effects of the counterfeit products.
Many proactive and reactive activities for brand protection are actually nothing but investments by the brand owners to save consumers from cheating. It is just that this spend needs to be routed differently. Using CSR finds for driving revenue & profitability growth, consumer protection and brand value, could be a good way to smartly get benefits for the society as well as the corporates.
www.brandsandfakes.com has created an eco-system of NGO’s, volunteers, activists, consumers etc, which can be very smartly used for getting benefits out of the CSR budget. The online tech & mobile platform, social media activities and smarter communication of the Brands & Fakes technology can work for the best interest of the brand owners and the consumers.
