Protection from Brand Infection Marketers Must Take Control of Their Brands, Especially Online
“Make no mistake,” says the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council in the opening statement to its report Marketer’s Fight Against Fakes, Frauds, and Infringements, “marketers and their brands are under siege. A vast and ever-expanding range of threats to brand value, integrity and image are bearing down on marketers in the form of counterfeits, gray market knock-offs, phishing attacks, cybersquatting, and a broad range of patent and trademark trespassing, especially online–that will likely intensify thanks to a softening economy.”
In response to concerns about the growing range of threats to brand value and the sheer volume of brand hijacking incidents, the CMO Council set out to assess the challenges marketers face as stewards of their brands. The result is Protection from Brand Infection, a seminal authority leadership report that outlines the proliferating threat-scape that marketers face and reveals how marketers are struggling to understand and measure the impact brand intrusions have on their second most valuable asset, their customer.
This article summarizes the results of that survey and cites examples of how pharmaceutical brands are being hijacked and what the drug companies are doing or not doing to counteract the problem, especially online and in social media contexts.
Topic headings include:
- Scope of the Problem
- Brand Theft on Internet
- Brand Infection Also Hurts Brand Loyalty
- Counterfeit Medicines
- Pharma’s Online Brand Infection Problem
- Protection from Brand Infection Survey
- Pharmaceuticals Cited Among Top Six Market Segments Affected
- Marketers Must Play Key Role in the Solution
- Digital Invasion Causing Most Harm
- Direct to Consumer Anti-Counterfeiting Initiatives
- Pfizer’s Direct to Consumer Anti-Counterfeiting Initiative
- Much More Work is Needed
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PMN85-01
Issue: Vol. 8, No. 5: May 2009
Word Count: 3585
