Reaching the Brand Protection Tipping Point
WASHINGTON, D.C.—All that remains for the brand protection market to take off is for brand owners to start requesting protection solutions. The technology is there, the market is ready to explode, but brand owners aren’t jumping on board yet. Such was the message at PABS07 (Product Authentication and Brand Security), held in Washington, D.C., Oct. 4-5.
The conference brought together almost 100 representatives from government agencies, suppliers, end users, and media to learn about the state of the brand protection market. Operated by Alexander Watson Associates (AWA), the annual event is presented in association with the Brand Protection Alliance (BPA) and featured a day and a half of conference sessions combined with a tabletop exhibition.
According to Lynn Crutchfield, president of the BPA, various brand security issues have been defined and include counterfeiting, piracy, simulation, diversion, supply chain integrity, and warranty fraud. These and other issues have been consolidated into one category called IP (intellectual property) theft. IP theft leads to an estimated $512 billion in lost sales globally per year. Despite that staggering estimate, according to preliminary results from recent AWA research, many brand owners are still not cognizant of the problem of IP theft or the financial implications to their companies. Money spent on brand protection is still spent in defensive and reactionary ways such as on legal fees and investigations. That being said, Crutchfield asserts that the field of product authentication is becoming an industry unto itself and feels that the BPA’s message was heard loud and clear at the conference. “Brand protection is an emerging market, the technology is here, now let’s get going,” he said.
Other results from AWA’s research support his assertion. Companies are now establishing departments with clear owners for ensuring their brands are protected by creating positions like brand protection manager or director, product protection. Also, respondents indicated that there is interest in the entire gamut of solution technologies. One hundred percent of respondents indicated that spending on anti-counterfeiting and/or anti-diversion activities will increase in 2008.
Conclusions derived from the research state that funds invested in these solutions will continue to grow, all solution types are generating interest, and brand owners that understand the problem have begun to invest in personnel and solutions.
While no one at the conference could predict when the brand protection market will reach its tipping point (the point at which a product or idea goes from unusual to common), each attendee left knowing a little more about how to provide protection, employ protection, or what to ask for regarding protection.
