Defending the Brand: Aggressive Strategies for Protecting Your Brand in the Online Arena

Citation

McMellon, C.A. (2005), "Defending the Brand: Aggressive Strategies for Protecting Your Brand in the Online Arena", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 75-77. https://doi.org/10.1108/10610420510583798

Internet brand piracy, counterfeiting, and fraud are words from the dark side of marketing that we need to understand. In Defending the Brand, Brian Murray explains these and other strategies unscrupulous marketers use to steal value from a brand. This is an easy‐to‐read book that covers many critical internet issues, including digital brand abuse, online partners and distribution, customer trust, gathering competitive intelligence, and importantly, taking action. Overall, Murray is asking a big question: “Who's cashing in on the value of your brand? Is it you? Or is it someone else” (p. 3)?

In Chapter 1, the reader enters “The dark side”. Because brand names offer a level of goodwill to consumers, some web sites will co‐opt a brand name for their own use. Ask yourself, what would you do if your brand name appeared on a porno site? Ignore it or, as author Murray suggests, defend your brand lest association damage it. For example, Mattel sued and shut down “Barbie's playpen,” an internet site of ill repute. Perhaps the worst case happened to Bert of Sesame Street fame when his image appeared next to Osama bin Laden on the “Bert is evil” internet site. The reader should Google “Bert is evil” and click on all the copycat sites that have appeared for a clearer picture of brand abuse.

Every chapter ends with two special sections. First, is “The business case”, where a specific aspect of cyber abuse is discussed, such as how to calculate the loss of brand equity due to internet abuse. The second special section is “The back room summary”, which highlights the important parts of the chapter. For chapter 1 it is why a cease‐and‐desist letter is a quick and sometimes effective first volley in defense of a brand.

Chapter 2, titled “The opportunity and threats of online commentary”, suggests that because there is so much interconnecting and information, brands are vulnerable. Thus, an early warning system is needed to defend the brand. Damaging rumors like Tommy Hilfiger saying that Blacks and Asians should not wear his clothes are discussed. Sprinkled throughout the book are specific helpful hints. For example, “Hint: analyzing commentary is an opportunity to gain insights into products, consumer perceptions, and market trends” (p. 35). Murray sometimes suggests a more proactive approach to deal with abusive web pages (e.g. “IhateKodak.com”). For example, Shell Oil opened its own web site for customer complaints, putting a big dent in “Shellsucks.com”.

Chapter 3, “Customer diversion”, shows how marketers can lure your customers away. Search engines are at the root of all of this evil. For example, “Cybersquatting” is when someone uses an off spelling of your name. For example, www.foradodge.com was a porno site, while www.4adodge.com was a Chrysler promotional site. “Typo‐piracy” is based on the idea that people misspell words. Thus, the extra “T” when typing Hyatt would bring you to a porno site. The author gives us a primer on domain name administration and how to deal with cybersquatting or typo‐piracy through cease‐and‐desist letters or arbitration. A description of the arbitration process is included to help the reader.

Next, on the list of devious practices is “search engine manipulation.” The author explains how search engines work, describing the game designers play to have their URL appear at the top of the search results. A common tactic is, “invisible seeding”, where brand names are hidden within the page but available to be picked up by search engines. The author explains many different varieties of this practice such as “spoofing,” “link spamming,” “web spamming,” and “cloaking”. “Adware” may be the worst of the bunch. These are software files that are inserted into your computer and pop up competitors’ ads when you visit a web site.

Last in the third chapter comes a litany of offensive tactics hated by most of us. Techniques like “spawning” “mouse trapping” “redirecting,” “home jacking”, and many other variants are explained, such as, changing the back button to take you to another page owned by the site.

Chapter 4, “Managing partner compliance” demonstrates how to extend brand equity through the use of online partners, affiliates, suppliers, distributors, and third parties. This is a more proactive practice to increase the quality of a customer's experience with associated internet sites. Examples include Home Depot, Maytag, and others. The big challenge is brand and customer experience consistency through prioritizing relationships, proactive brand management, and enforcement.

Chapter 5 covers “Counterfeits and gray markets”. Hewlett‐Packard is showcased on how to fight gray market goods through internal control and education. Counterfeits, on the other hand, can be more problematic. Clothing, copier supplies, and pharmaceuticals are used as examples. Again monitoring and aggressive enforcement help control these situations.

Chapter 6, “Defending against digital piracy”, tackles the problems of music, video, and software illegal downloading. Controlling this is also problematic, although cease‐and‐desist, digital watermarking, and spoofing (e.g. releasing a sample of the music with an advertisement for the album) work sometimes.

Chapter 7, examines “The cost of compromised privacy and security”, and the loss of customer trust. This chapter discusses the information collection technology of “cookies” and “web beacons”. There is a good example of how Toys “R” Us responded to consumer concerns about their use of a combination of cookies and web beacons to build a database of highly personal information. Also included are discussions on information security, customer information storage, and identity theft.

In Chapter 8, “Using online competitive intelligence to outmaneuver competitor brands”, Murray contends that the internet is an ideal place to examine competitors’ strategies and what they are saying about their brand. A step‐by‐step process is presented to accomplish a stronger competitive advantage. Another great hint is included:

Some search engines offer the ability to find who is linking to your competitor's home page or domain through an advanced search feature called a “reverse lookup” (p. 159).

Chapter 9, “How to use online monitoring to control your brand and capture revenue”, begins with a strong statement that we should all heed:

Companies operating without intelligence are flying blind – missing opportunities and flirting with potential disaster (p. 171).

The author uses a tried‐and‐true process for gathering internet intelligence, including what, where, and how to gather.

In Chapter 10, “Constructing your plan of attack”, Murray offers a ten‐step approach to taking action beginning with “categorizing incidents by offender” and ending with whatever follow‐up is needed. There is also a good discussion of best practices of action for each type of offense.

Chapter 11, “Mobilizing the forces”, presents some helpful hints on raising awareness, dealing with apathy within the firm, making sure who is responsible for action. For example, the last helpful hint in the book states:

Large corporations with customer‐facing brands should have a senior executive whose primary responsibility is to protect brand integrity (p. 211).

The book ends with a glossary of terms, list of top‐level domains, samples of affiliate and managing partnerships compliance guidelines, and examples of cease‐and‐desist letters.

In summary, Defending the Brand offers the brand manager a number of strategic steps to fend off aggressive brand exploiters who are more than willing to abuse a brand for their own gain. This is a fascinating look at all the tactics competitors use to exploit or steal your business. All who use the internet, especially those who market on the internet, should read this book.