‘Tis the Season to... Supercharge Your Brand Infringement Strategy

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Don’t let the counterfeiting Grinch ruin your brand’s Christmas! Thanks to advances in online monitoring services and technology, it is becoming more straightforward to fight back against the spike in brand infringement over the festive season, as Questel’s David Godoy explains.

For most of us, the festive season evokes feelings of community, joy, and hope. Many choose to express gratitude and esteem for friends and family by gifting them something special; for others, it provides a great excuse to reward themselves with a highly deserved prize for all the achievements of the year that is about to end.

Unsurprisingly, the trade in goods and services experiences a considerable boost as 25 December draws closer. From Black Friday to the January sales, the Christmas period offers a great opportunity for companies to increase their sales and position their brands in the minds of consumers, who could be otherwise overwhelmed by the number of options available. However, focusing only on the potential profits from the season, without regard to the brand infringement risk posed by ill-intended third parties seeking to ride on the coattails of your brands, could soon turn those jovial feelings into ones of despair and stress.

A Less Than Festive Season for Brand Infringement...

During busy shopping periods, counterfeiters look to take advantage of enthusiastic consumers by falsely impersonating your company and its brands and tempting them with discounts or promotion campaigns. Many consumers can be easily tricked by new technologies, with sophisticated tools advertising unauthorized and infringing goods and services at such high quality that it can be hard for the naked eye to detect if it is, in fact, an original or a fake product.

Although the traditional forms of IP protection (e.g., trademark registration or use in commerce) continue to play a paramount role in the effective safeguarding of your assets, online threats pose a different brand infringement challenge due to their ability to reach multiple audiences around the world simultaneously. As a result, it is becoming increasingly vital to have a partner that can not only help you to identify such threats rapidly but also react diligently and proactively to eliminate or minimize the negative impact on your brands, your revenue, and your reputation.

Five Reasons to Focus on Online Brand Protection Now

Besides the high consumer spending and the consequential rise in counterfeit goods/services, online brand protection becomes especially critical during the holiday shopping season for several reasons:

Customer Loyalty

Shoppers are more likely to trust and remain loyal to brands that can provide a reliable shopping experience. When customers encounter fake or fraudulent products, it can damage their perception of the brand, reducing loyalty and future sales.

Corporate Goodwill

Brand reputation is crucial during busy shopping periods such as Christmas. One negative experience, such as a customer receiving a counterfeit product or being scammed, can lead to bad reviews and social media backlash. Protecting your brand from infringement online minimizes these risks and helps maintain a positive image during a high sales period.

Preventing Domain Squatting and Fake Websites

Fraudsters may create websites that imitate legitimate brands to trick consumers into buying fake products, especially during the festive season, when consumers may be less vigilant or in a hurry to purchase gifts. Monitoring and taking down such websites or infringing domains can help prevent damage to your brand.

Social Media Exploitation

Many consumers turn to social media for shopping recommendations and deals during the holidays. Unfortunately, counterfeiters and scammers also use these platforms to promote fake products (and ‘dupes’), often through targeted ads or influencer scams.

Avoiding Legal and Compliance Risks

If counterfeit products or brand misuse result in harm, such as dangerous counterfeit goods, your company could face legal risks or compliance issues. Protecting your brand proactively helps prevent such occurrences and shields your business from potential lawsuits or liability.

Ensuring your brand is protected across all online platforms is key to avoiding brand misuse, safeguarding revenue, and protecting consumers. Given the heightened risks of counterfeits, fraud, and brand misuse during this period, a proactive approach to online brand protection is essential. However, with so many services and tools on the market, it can be difficult to know where to start.

How to Optimize Your Online Brand Protection Program this Season

The traditional focus of online brand protection services has been to identify brand infringement and take down infringing products or content online; for example, by focusing on counterfeits, brand abuse, unauthorized domain name registrations, or deceptive lookalike sites. While monitoring services still have a critical role to play, Questel understands that brand owners need a solution that helps them manage and process the high volume of infringement cases effectively. Likewise, many companies are calling for smarter, integrated, and more cost-efficient enforcement services that will enable them to free up valuable in-house time. In other words, an end-to-end online brand protection service that combines the knowledge and expertise of analysts with state-of-the-art technology.

By automating monitoring, tracking, and enforcement, our combined case management and take-down online brand protection service delivers on all these fronts. Our solution reduces the demands on brand owners by detecting online threats by predefined criteria, triggering pre-agreed automated alerts and enforcement workflows, and tracking all brand protection activities via a centralized case management tool.

Keep the Grinch away from your brands by partnering with Questel this holiday season. By merging the expertise of highly skilled IP professionals and automated systems, our targeted online brand protection service will help you achieve the best possible results. Instead of worrying about the impact of brand infringement on your brand, customers, and bottom line, your only concern during this time will be choosing what to prepare for Christmas dinner.

To find out more about Questel's online brand protection service and technology, contact our Subject Matter Experts to request a demo or trial.

About the Author

David Godoy

is a Senior Client Solutions in Trademark, Design & Domain Services at Questel.