In our previous post, Anti-Counterfeiting Demand is about to make a Turning Point we hopefully convinced you that it is important to communicate your anti-counterfeiting efforts to the public. Now comes the hard part, giving the public the information they deserve about counterfeiting without making them loose confidence in your brand.

So what can brand owners do to keep the public's confidence? First, you have to admit that you have a problem. (Cliché but true) A savvy customer will see right through you if you say that you don't have a counterfeiting problem and never could. A less savvy customer will lose faith if counterfeiting of your brand ever becomes a public issue. It would not hurt to commission some research in this area to figure out the scope and nature of the problem.  If you don't have counterfeit products out there, you should analyze your supply chain and find the vulnerabilities.

Next, you have to create a robust anti-counterfeiting program that addresses your specific needs. Yes, this is easier said than done. We generally recommend a system that combines overt and covert brand protection, but every brand has its own needs.  Luckily there are consultants out there who specialize in helping brands create brand protection strategies.

After that you have to decide who has the responsibility of brand protection in your company. This is easier said than done. A recent discussion between us and other anti-counterfeiting industry professionals brought up many interesting possibilities of which departments should be responsible for carrying out a company's anti-counterfeiting efforts and who should be involved. Marketing, sales, PR, technical support and legal were brought up as possibilities. There is also the possibility of creating a special brand protection department and getting other departments involved as needed.

Keep in mind that it is not enough to create an anti-counterfeiting program; the program has to be maintained, the success has to be tracked and changes have to occasionally be made in order to stay ahead of the counterfeiters.  As we highlighted in the blog post Banknote Anti-Counterfeiting in Canada, you don't want to take a chance that counterfeiters will crack your security.

Finally, you need to decide how to communicate your anti-counterfeiting efforts to the public. One brand, Johnson&Johnson grouped their anti-counterfeiting efforts in with their corporate social responsibility publicity, but this is hardly the only strategy out there. You also have to decide what parts you want to reveal and what parts you want to keep vague. You and the PR team will need to devise a very careful strategy and figure out when, where and how to publish your brand's anti-counterfeiting efforts.

Do you know of a brand that publicizes its anti-counterfeiting efforts? Write to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and tell us about it. We will include the company in a follow up post highlighting brands that publicize their anti-counterfeiting efforts.