PROTECTING YOUR BRAND ONLINE
As Warren Buffett, one of the world’s most trusted voices in times of economic trouble, once said: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” Good and bad news spread like wildfire across the Internet today, fuelled by our addiction to social media. A story about a brand that has been attacked can become a viral story long before the company involved even knows there is a problem. Tis is why it is essential for companies to have a clear strategy on how they monitor potential threats, defend attacks on their brand and counterattack effectively and definitively.
Te good news is that there are simple steps any company can take to reduce the risk of brand damage and reputation infringement. Te starting point is to assess the current brand risks by undertaking an online brand audit of the threat landscape, and indentify what immediate steps can be taken. Tis will form the basis of developing a strategy that will protect the brand, increase business revenues and safeguard valuable customers.
A daring method
Some of the largest brands in the world have already adopted a simple, four-step approach to combating issues surrounding online reputation. Tis approach, known as DARE, is identified as follows:
• Detect the problems a brand faces. Tis can be done by monitoring online and offline marketplaces for counterfeit goods, monitoring social media sites for reported reputation issues or false claims of association and monitoring the web for rogue, fake or lookalike websites.
• Assess the nature and the size of the problem and understand the potential impact each
infringement will have on the brand’s
reputation, revenue and customers. Some problems simply cannot be tackled with finite resources and companies need to be able to take a tactical approach to solving the right issues at the right time.
• Report on the impact of these infringements on the brand, both internally and externally. If a company is aware of potential issues, it can at least be prepared for any media fallout. Likewise, internally the business needs to understand the nature of the long-term impact of any brand abuse and determine what cost-effective steps can be taken.
• Enforce your IP rights, aggressively but accurately, and act to remove brand infringements, whether they are the sale of counterfeit goods, false claims of association, trademark or domain name infringements, phishing attacks, streamed pirated content or copycat websites.
Tis four-step DARE approach is used successfully by companies including NetNames to manage
reputation risk for major global brands for all such infringements.
Consider the desired outcome and do not shy away from engaging with appropriate bodies such as law-enforcement agencies, government bodies or private companies that can help your brand achieve its desired outcome.
With a clear online brand protection strategy, any company can rest assured that this Christmas consumers will be buying its products and services, and not counterfeits. Perhaps those brand owners will be able to join me on the sofa to watch
Te Sound of Music, just in time to address the real problem of counterfeits today. How do we solve a problem like Maria? Even the greatest Internet minds still haven’t fixed that one!
*All statistics and references are available in the NetNames One Step Ahead in the Digital World animation, infographic and white paper, hosted on
www.searchfindstop.com
Stuart Fuller is director of communications at NetNames Ltd. He can be contacted at:
stuart.fuller@netnames.com
Stuart Fuller has significant experience in brand protection, in retail and corporate and resale markets. He specialises in creating high performing teams, adding value through corporate development programmes and is a qualified sales coach, mentor and expert in performance and change management.
www.worldipreview.com
Trademarks Brands and the Internet Volume 1, Issue 4
37
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