Category: Commercial Brand Protection
Implementing an Effective Brand Protection Program
|From Risk Identification to Full Implementation
Part 4 of The ABC’s of Brand Protection series by Authentix focusing on the global scope of the counterfeiting epidemic and how to act against it to protect your brand, your customers and your revenue.
In articles 1, 2 and 3 of this series, we’ve discussed the vast scope of the global counterfeiting problem, the tactics used by counterfeiters, and security features used on many products today to detect and mitigate these compromises. You are aware that this is a massive problem but how do you determine if your products are at risk? Understanding and assessing these risks is the first vital step to start mapping out your company’s action plan, resulting in an effective brand protection program.
Five Steps to Determine if Your Products are at Risk
-
Identify the risk areas
First, develop a risk inventory for your product line. The level of risk might differ depending upon supply chain complexity, geography, price point, margins, and anticipated demand. Consider these questions to identify vulnerabilities:
- Is my product line high volume with a low variable cost to produce?
- Are these products sold at higher price points and gross margins?
- Does my product line have an existing or potentially large market share?
- Does my product line and/or packaging currently have covert or overt security features that are economic deterrents to prevent counterfeiting?
- Do we sell through a complex supply chain and lose visibility to the point of sale?
- Are any of these products sold online or manufactured in countries without stringent counterfeit enforcement laws?
-
Assess risk
Determine the likelihood, impact, and overall threat of each risk factor. How susceptible is each product in your portfolio for attempted compromise? Use this information to create a portfolio of the higher risk products which includes:
- Aggregated risks – score each product with weighted indicators to prioritize by risk potential
- Map of the supply chain environment – what are the highest points of exposure and where do we have access?
- Potential short- and long-term damage – Consider:
- How could adverse events of illicit supply affect consumer trust in your brand?
- What about liability from health issues caused by compromised product?
- How much market share and revenue dilution could be happening?
-
Develop a risk management strategy
Examine the results of your risk assessment to create an integrated strategy for each high-risk product that includes potential solutions to address all the foreseen threats:
- Adopt a defined set of policies and procedures where your stakeholders are aligned
- Look at available solutions to address specific product risks by threat area; for example – consumer safety vs. losses from diversion activity
- Address what actionable steps can be taken at the physical points in the supply chain where threats are the greatest
- Play out each risk scenario and escalation possibilities for contingent action upon the event including communication strategies
- Prepare a budget to implement solutions based on your assessment
-
Create an action plan
Responses to the most pressing threats can now be put into action by organizing management, information, and technology solution partner(s). Your action plan should include the following three categories:
- Detection and Deterrence – solutions that provide detection of a non-authorized product in the supply chain, proactive awareness campaigns, investigatory procedures upon detection, vendor agreements that include security policies for handling or manufacturing higher risk products, and unannounced audits of downstream distribution partners.
- Enforcement – the pre-determined action you plan to take upon the detection of an adverse event. This might depend on the event’s geography, supply chain level, and the resources you have allocated for enforcement.
- Prosecution – plan the specific steps that will be taken to support investigative and forensic efforts upon the discovery and confirmation of responsible parties. In some countries, enforcing your supply agreements against offending distribution partners might be a better course of action than criminal prosecution.
-
Monitor risk and continually re-evaluate your strategy
The last step in your strategy is a closed loop. Constant review of your data analytics offers an opportunity to better understand changing risks, increased or decreased vulnerabilities, and allows you to refine your actionable policy proactively. Today, data visualization coupled with a strong physical security element is even more critical in the fight against illicit product placement activity. Analyze and act on these insights revealed in the reporting information– from new counterfeit hot spots to changing risk as time evolves.
The fact is no one solution or security measure will be the panacea to address all instances of product compromise across the global marketplace. However, as a brand owner you can assess these risks and select the right security solution partner(s) to help minimize the damage and keep you in charge rather than being in a reactionary stance. Also, it is important to select solution partners with lengthy experience in multiple industries who can offer a full suite of technology and service solutions that can both be rapidly implemented and scale to your business needs.
For more brand protection basics – why it is necessary, how it works, who is vulnerable, how to implement an effective program, what to look for in a technology partner, and which emerging technologies will make a difference in the future – download the eBook, The ABC’s of Brand Protection.
Stealthy Security: Anti-Counterfeiting Tactics
|Part 3 of the ABC’s of Brand Protection series by Authentix focusing on the global scope of the counterfeiting epidemic and how to take action against it to protect your brand, your customers and your revenue.
We must face the facts. Counterfeiters make it their mission to knock off high-value products and they can be very good at it. With the right tools and illegal intent, a counterfeiter can create a product and packaging close enough to the original to easily fool consumers. And as technology becomes more accessible, it only gets easier for them to duplicate the basic one-dimensional protection measures a brand might implement. To fight back, you’ll need an arsenal of security features that can be woven seamlessly into the product and packaging design making it far less vulnerable to bad actors.
Each security feature serves a unique purpose. Overt or visible features allow the end consumer to verify authenticity of their purchased product. There are also covert or invisible markings enable trained inspectors to quickly authenticate genuine products in the supply chain, identify the source of diversion or determine other illicit activities. When combined with careful design and production quality controls, these features raise the bar of complexity for counterfeiters and make the product a less attractive target.
Categories
Let’s break down six basic categories of anti-counterfeiting features. You might have implemented one as a security tactic, but still battling diversion in the marketplace. Rather than one and done, think of these tactics as a multidimensional security wall that helps identify authentic products from fakes.
- Overt Security Features – These visible features can easily be detected and are often beautifully incorporated into the design of the product or packaging.
Covert or Semi-Covert Security Features – Covert and semi-covert features are invisible to the naked eye or disguised but can be found and measured with specialized handheld devices using proprietary optics and detection algorithms for rapid, secure field authentication.
- Forensic Security Features – Forensic analysis involves laboratory testing of products via an embedded (non-native) component or molecule added to a substrate or solution to determine authenticity.
- Serialization or Track and Trace Features – The application of individual unique codes at the point of manufacture (giving each product an identifiable attribute) and defined scanning locations where retrieval and association of the unit can be linked to the scanning transaction.
- Digital solutions – The application of a unique code, number or symbol that results in a digital ID recorded in a database. Product attributes such as manufacturing date and time, expiration dates, lot numbers, pictures, and a host of other origin information can be added to the database record and associated with the product.
- RFID – Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a small antenna and receiver system where a unique product-level ID is hidden or embedded in a small chip or printed label. The ability of these “electronic labels” to communicate with a centralized database system performs like other track and trace systems.
One Tactic Is Not Enough
An effective multilayered approach using overt, covert, and forensic security features is the most effective long-term solution to detect and deter counterfeiting. When incorporated into labels, closure seals, storage cartons, and packaging, each type of feature serves a unique purpose — from color-shifting ink that allow end-users to quickly identify a branded product as genuine to covert markings that enable an inspector to identify many factors involved with the source of authenticity.
For a deeper dive into the details of each type of security feature and other brand protection basics – why it is necessary, how it works, who is vulnerable, how to implement an effective program, what to look for in a technology partner, and which emerging technologies will make a difference in the future – download the eBook, The ABC’s of Brand Protection.
Product Security Technologies: The Role of Brand Protection in Packaging & Labels
|The Dark Arts of Counterfeiting
|Part 2 of the ABC’s of Brand Protection series by Authentix focusing on the global scope of the counterfeiting epidemic and how to take action against it to protect your brand, your customers and your revenue.
By the Authentix Brand Protection Team
Brands are working harder than ever to provide transparency into their business practices. The customer trust and loyalty that this creates is invaluable and the holy grail of marketing departments. A sure-fire way to destroy that trust is to be subjected to counterfeit controversy – product falsification, consumer harm, or news of legal action against a brand can prove toxic to any popular brand.
Tactics
Organized criminal enterprises have developed sophisticated networks of willing players throughout the global supply chain in practically every industry to cause such destruction. Some of their tactics include:
- Counterfeiting
- Diversion
- Tampering/Reuse
- Adulteration
Today, companies expand their operating and delivery efficiencies at lower costs with high-quality manufacturing available around the world. However, that innovation comes at a cost by enabling undetectable counterfeit goods to make their way into the supply chain. Buzzworthy brands with growing demand, celebrity clout and premium price points are most-targeted. The resulting inferior quality and/or faulty parts lead to consumer dissatisfaction, recalls, and major safety concerns.
It’s not just back alley transactions and big city flea markets that you need to worry about anymore. The rise of digital marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Etsy (plus countless others that emerge each year) enable and accelerate sales of knockoff goods not only to willing buyers, but unsuspecting ones as well. In fact, according to a 2018 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, about 40 percent of a sample of goods bought on popular eCommerce websites were fake. Data collected by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol between 2000 and 2018 shows that seizures of counterfeit and pirated goods at U.S. borders, much of destined for e-commerce channels, has increased ten-fold.
It is forecast that by 2022, the negative impact of counterfeiting and piracy will drain US $4.2 trillion from the global economy and put 5.4 million legitimate jobs at risk. This impact cuts a wide swath across many industries and businesses including:
-
Pharmaceuticals and OTC Medicines:
At least one million people die each year after consuming counterfeit medicines.
Tobacco:
If the global illicit trade in tobacco was eliminated, governments would gain at least US $31 billion in additional taxation revenue. Curbing this illicit trade could save over 160,000 lives annually by 2030 and beyond.
Spirits and Premium Drinks:
Counterfeit or illegal alcohol, recognized as “unrecorded” alcohol, is not monitored for quality or taxation. The WHO estimates that 25 percent of the alcohol consumed worldwide is unrecorded.
AgroChem:
The WHO estimated that counterfeit and adulterated pesticides poison over three million people7 annually and result in over 200,000 deaths mainly in developing countries due to unregulated trade enforcement.
-
Health & Beauty:
According to the FBI, counterfeit cosmetics have contained adulterants such as paint thinner, which irritates the eyes, nose, and throat in addition to being flammable and poisonous.
In this climate, many companies are thinking more broadly about how to implement coordinated anti-counterfeiting and anti-diversion strategies across their brands and throughout different regions of the world. Just as tamper-evident seals on bottles of pills and liquid formulations became more common after a tampering scare in the 1980s, attitudes toward anti-counterfeiting technologies are beginning to evolve.
For more brand protection basics – why it is necessary, how it works, who is vulnerable, how to implement an effective program, what to look for in a technology partner, and which emerging technologies will help protect your brands in the future – read the The ABC’s of Brand Protection.
The ABCs of a Successful Brand Protection Program
|Part 1 of the ABC’s of Brand Protection series by Authentix focusing on the global scope of the counterfeiting epidemic and how to take action against it to protect your brand, your customers and your revenue.
By the Authentix Brand Protection Team
The Global Impact of Counterfeiting
The negative impact of counterfeiting and piracy is projected to drain U.S. $4.2 trillion from the global economy and put 5.4 million legitimate jobs at risk by 2022.1 Are your products protected? They need to be.
If anyone of us were to think about the purchases we made over the years, we’ve probably purchased a counterfeit good.
Supply Chain Complexity
It’s estimated that more than 80 percent2 of all global consumers have unwittingly purchased falsified products. This concept is proliferated by the ever-growing global supply chain and all its complexities that foster an environment lacking required ingredients, quality control, or government oversight. To get ahead of the counterfeiters, brand owners need a brand protection program to shield what matters most to your business – customers, brand, and revenue.
Counterfeiting During Crisis
The gaps in the system are magnified even more during a pandemic. In the same week COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, a fake and dangerous rendition of a popular potential therapeutic drug with a street value of more than $14 million was seized by Interpol4 . It’s time to sound the alarm. No one industry is immune to such calculated nefarious acts. Brand owners from health and beauty, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, to apparel experience financial losses and more importantly, added risks to consumer health and safety.
Benefits of a Strong Brand Protection Program
The good news is that today’s anti-counterfeiting solutions to detect and deter fraud are growing more sophisticated, affordable, and accessible. The benefits of a strong brand protection program are three-fold:
- Protection of the brand owner’s livelihood – namely its reputation and investments into market-leading proprietary products.
- Consumer protection – no brand owner wants their name associated with health hazards or calamities resulting from brand compromise.
- Corporate citizenship – proactive companies that deploy product protection programs and are serious about a no-compromise climate are more responsible corporate citizens. This leadership and transparency can contribute exponentially to customer loyalty as it humanizes the brand.
Taking Action Against Counterfeiting
CONSIDER THIS: The global economic value of counterfeiting and piracy could reach U.S. $2.3 trillion by 2022.3
Do you have a strategy in place, with policies and dedicated infrastructure to combat product fraud? Maybe you partner with a trusted third-party technology and solution provider. Maybe you don’t yet have a brand protection program in place. No matter your approach to the counterfeiting issues, knowledge is power.
Counterfeiting is real and impacts everyone in the supply chain. This article addresses a single layer of the importance of brand protection programs. We have more facts, figures and trends in our latest eBook, The ABC’s of Brand Protection. This eBook offers a crash course in how brand protection works, who is vulnerable, how to implement an effective program, what to look for in a technology partner, and which emerging technologies will make a difference.
Sources
1. https://iccwbo.org/media-wall/news-speeches/global-impacts-counterfeiting-piracy-reach-us4-2-trillion-2022/
2. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/20_0124_plcy_counterfeit-pirated-goods-report_01.pdf
3. https://iccwbo.org/media-wall/news-speeches/global-impacts-counterfeiting-piracy-reach-us4-2-trillion-2022/
4. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52201077
Podcast: Delivering Brand Protection
|Authentix Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Kent Mansfield sat down with Cassandra Balentine, editor of DPS Magazine to discuss what print providers can do to ensure their output is protected from counterfeiting and other growing security concerns.
Protect Your Brand – Right Partner, Right Solution, Right Time
|The Assurance of a Well-Designed, Secure Spirits Packaging Solution
|The right brand protection solutions to protect your product.
In a recent article, produced for Beauty Packaging, we introduced the shift in implementing security features to protect your products. There has always been a struggle between brand owners and marketing on where to place a security feature: on-product/in-product or on-package/in-package. The article served as a reminder that today’s technology, combined with the
right domain experience in ink technologies and printing techniques, expands the concept of how to protect products against counterfeiters. It highlighted that different areas of the business, like the marketing team and packaging engineers,
can feel confident that selected security features will not interfere with the packaging aesthetics or production.
Our latest discussion focuses on what is readily available to you and what you can learn about your products to make better business decisions. Two questions you want to be able to answer:
- Do the benefits of including security features create a positive ROI for the company?
- Does anyone in the company know how to properly estimate the costs of product adulteration or fraud?
A risk assessment strategy will help answer the above questions by revealing critical data points associated with your high-value products. This assessment will lead to a brand protection solution that is right for you. With the right brand protection solution, you can really ascertain how much your bottom line is impacted by counterfeit activities.
Play defense by using a multilayered approach
At Authentix, we have discovered that the most effective way to protect your branded products is by utilizing a multilayered approach which provides a combination of security features (overt, covert, forensic, digital). This provides a masterful defense against counterfeiting efforts, as detection can be done quickly in the field and enforcement can be rapid—thus limiting the exposure and extent of a problem. Let’s review the various solutions by security feature.
Overt security
Holograms, specialty inks, color-shifting inks—features you can see without devices. Well-known effects include:
- Tamper-evident poly seals, shrink sleeves and induction seals
- Secure holography with image shift on angular variables (OVD)
- Security inks such as color-shifting inks—also known as optically variable inks (OVI)
- Specialty substrates such as UV- or IR-emitting security fibers
- Digital QR or other visible code
- Substrate or ink tactile effects
- Security graphics / overt complexity (print effects/varnish plate anomalies, etc.)
The global economic value of counterfeiting and piracy could reach US$2.3 trillion by 2022.
(Source: International Chamber of Commerce).
Covert security
Ultraviolet inks [UV], infrared [IR] inks, invisible taggants embedded in substrates, and inks with other specialized markers—features you can see only with proprietary devices. These features include:
- Thermally or magnetically activated inks
- Pantographs or anti-copy features
- Visually discernable microtext
- Scrambled indicia
- Coin-reactive inks
Visible Digital Codes
Hidden secure graphics covert solutions—features are invisible to the average person but detected upon inspection by a trained individual utilizing a specific device.
- Invisible security inks activated by illumination in invisible spectral wavelengths
- Hidden images or digital watermarks
- Micro taggants (machine readable or visible on high magnification)
- Hidden microtext or micro printing
- Marks in die-cut profile
- Deliberate mistakes in small printing fonts or other marks
Forensic
Molecular taggants, DNA, nanoparticle coatings—features only detectable with laboratory equipment.
- Forensic markers
- DNA-type inks for forensic examination
- Spectrographic signature analysis
Digital
A host of solutions, which can include the above, relating to numeric values or digital symbology that enable users to look up related product authentication data either via the internet or through a proprietary localized database.
Most highly secure overt and covert inks available today are compatible with essentially all conventional or digital printing, and applicable on most substrates such as labels, seals, closures, etc. They are also customizable in a variety of colors and coating types.
A winning appearance
Today’s anti-counterfeiting and brand protection technology advancements embody the aesthetic qualities for which your brand is recognized. Beyond maintaining an attractive package on the shelf, it is important to understand what authentication features will satisfy the key stakeholders within your organization. And how will you be able to detect counterfeiting in the field and enforce the law when needed? All of these factors need to be considered and prioritized when working through the various options.
We understand the challenges you face and can help identify and rapidly implement the product security that makes sense. Our 25 years of experience have helped us to design our many technologies to seamlessly integrate within existing ecosystems, such as packaging, printing, manufacturing and other production partners, with the primary goal of limited disruption to existing processes. Contact us to get started.
The Assurance of a Well-Designed, Secure Health & Beauty Packaging Solution
|The right brand protection solutions to protect your product
In a recent article produced for Beauty Packaging, we introduced the shift in implementing security features to protect your products. There has always been a struggle between brand owners and marketing on where to place a security feature: on-product/in-product or on-package/in-package. The article served as a reminder that today’s technology, combined with the
right domain experience in ink technologies and printing techniques, expands the concept of how to protect products against counterfeiters. It highlighted that different areas of the business, like the marketing team and packaging engineers,
can feel confident that selected security features will not interfere with the packaging aesthetics or production.
Our latest discussion focuses on what is readily available to you and what you can learn about your products to make better business decisions. Two questions you want to be able to answer:
- Do the benefits of including security features create a positive ROI for the company?
- Does anyone in the company know how to properly estimate the costs of product adulteration or fraud?
A risk assessment strategy will help answer the above questions by revealing critical data points associated with your high-value products. This assessment will lead to a brand protection solution that is right for you. With the right brand protection solution, you can really ascertain how much your bottom line is impacted by counterfeit activities.
Play defense by using a multilayered approach
At Authentix, we have discovered that the most effective way to protect your branded products is by utilizing a multilayered approach which provides a combination of security features (overt, covert, forensic, digital). This provides a masterful defense against counterfeiting efforts, as detection can be done quickly in the field and enforcement can be rapid—thus limiting the exposure and extent of a problem. Let’s review the various solutions by security feature.
Overt security
Holograms, specialty inks, color-shifting inks—features you can see without devices. Well-known effects include:
- Tamper-evident poly seals, shrink sleeves and induction seals
- Secure holography with image shift on angular variables (OVD)
- Security inks such as color-shifting inks—also known as optically variable inks (OVI)
- Specialty substrates such as UV- or IR-emitting security fibers
- Digital QR or other visible code
- Substrate or ink tactile effects
- Security graphics / overt complexity (print effects/varnish plate anomalies, etc.)
The global economic value of counterfeiting and piracy could reach US$2.3 trillion by 2022.
(Source: International Chamber of Commerce).
Covert security
Ultraviolet inks [UV], infrared [IR] inks, invisible taggants embedded in substrates, and inks with other specialized markers—features you can see only with proprietary devices. These features include:
- Thermally or magnetically activated inks
- Pantographs or anti-copy features
- Visually discernable microtext
- Scrambled indicia
- Coin-reactive inks
Visible Digital Codes
Hidden secure graphics covert solutions—features are invisible to the average person but detected upon inspection by a trained individual utilizing a specific device.
- Invisible security inks activated by illumination in invisible spectral wavelengths
- Hidden images or digital watermarks
- Micro taggants (machine readable or visible on high magnification)
- Hidden microtext or micro printing
- Marks in die-cut profile
- Deliberate mistakes in small printing fonts or other marks
Forensic
Molecular taggants, DNA, nanoparticle coatings—features only detectable with laboratory equipment.
- Forensic markers
- DNA-type inks for forensic examination
- Spectrographic signature analysis
Digital
A host of solutions, which can include the above, relating to numeric values or digital symbology that enable users to look up related product authentication data either via the internet or through a proprietary localized database.
Most highly secure overt and covert inks available today are compatible with essentially all conventional or digital printing, and applicable on most substrates such as labels, seals, closures, etc. They are also customizable in a variety of colors and coating types.
A winning appearance
Today’s anti-counterfeiting and brand protection technology advancements embody the aesthetic qualities for which your brand is recognized. Beyond maintaining an attractive package on the shelf, it is important to understand what authentication features will satisfy the key stakeholders within your organization. And how will you be able to detect counterfeiting in the field and enforce the law when needed? All of these factors need to be considered and prioritized when working through the various options.
We understand the challenges you face and can help identify and rapidly implement the product security that makes sense. Our 25 years of experience have helped us to design our many technologies to seamlessly integrate within existing ecosystems, such as packaging, printing, manufacturing and other production partners, with the primary goal of limited disruption to existing processes. Contact us to get started.