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machinery, workplace practices and could even have a detrimental impact on the environment.
It’s all in the label Counterfeit products attempt to imitate the authenticity of brands through packaging and labelling, falsely represented as genuine products. This also includes utilising old or used packaging, and substituting either all or a part of the contents with a product of lesser quality, then resealing the product with a fresh cap featuring a tamper-evident band or security ring. Another technique that counterfeiters employ is brand theft, which includes using the design, logo and colours of a reputable brand to invent a new product that never existed under the original brand.
Experts in the industry have estimated the value of the global counterfeit market, which reportedly exceeded $2.8 trillion in 2022. With a counterfeit market of that scale, and an operation so complex it can be hard to distinguish between the real and fake products, it’s no wonder that so many people are persuaded into, often unknowingly, buying counterfeits. Research conducted by brand consultancy, BrandCare, on lubricants available across multiple online marketplaces, revealed that there are several recurring patterns of packaging and labelling that can expose counterfeit products.
One of the main concerns is inconsistent placement and quality of packaging; often featuring incorrect language and grammar or omitting key product information from labels. These counterfeit products are then put up for sale at significantly lower prices to undercut genuine sellers – BrandCare identified multiple examples of counterfeit lubricants undervalued by up to as much as 50 percent.
Risks and repercussions These lower-grade lubricants, however, cause major distrust in brands that can resonate throughout the chemicals industry.
In 2022, a spokesperson from Industrial and Trade VKS Group warned customers using low-quality counterfeit engine oil of the potential damages to, not only the engine, but to human life.
From a brand perspective, the threats to a brand’s reputation can decrease consumers’ trust, leading
16 LUBE MAGAZINE NO.179 FEBRUARY 2024
to significant financial losses, with research from MarkMonitor revealing that 47 percent of brands are now losing sales to counterfeit goods. Furthermore, 58 percent of companies interviewed have stated that they can see things getting worse over the next five years. Furthermore, experts also predict that counterfeiters are becoming more sophisticated as rising costs continue to force customers to seek out cheaper options.
Many lubricant companies rely on third-party services for the product labels, which historically would involve sending the latest files over for printing, often through basic methods like email - a practice that poses a potential risk of file leaks with labels falling into the hands of counterfeiters.
Consistency and control It is evident that brands are finding new and innovative ways to combat counterfeits, helping customers distinguish their products from the myriad of fakes that are also on sale.
In 2022 for example, Kallik customer, ExxonMobil Lubricants, launched its ‘Mobil Super’ lubricant range which features a QR–code-based anti-counterfeit feature on the bottles for consumers to verify the authenticity of the product.
Watermarking and holograms have gone a long way in tackling some of the supply chain complexities that leave the industry vulnerable to fraud – but greater transparency is still needed to tackle comprehensive and convincing counterfeits.
As one of the most common ways that counterfeiters replicate a brand’s authenticity is through a product label, it is only natural that one way to combat this is through having a consistent and controlled method to update labels, such as an automated Labelling and Artwork Management (LAM) software.
By bringing the labelling process ‘in-house’, on one unified LAM platform where the artwork is on file and updated on a regular basis internally, brands can go some way to protecting themselves from counterfeiters right from the start.
Not only this, but automating the labelling process will free up employees’ time by taking on capacity, reducing the financial outlay that some companies
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