Speaking at the MarkMonitor Insider Forum 2007, Professor Susan Scafidi told brand owners that they were to blame – in part – for the trade in fakes.
“You guys have great advertising, and then you throw into the mix the odd celebrity or two, and demand [for counterfeits] goes crazy,” she said.
“In some ways it’s a good problem. It proves that you have a hot brand. But it also devalues it.”
Scafidi, the author of the counterfeitchic.com blog, said that the people who buy fakes fall into five broad categories.
First is the Clueless Consumer. Although she knows that bags for sale on New York’s Canal Street or Beijing’s Silk Market are likely to be knock-offs, this shopper is easier to fool online, and the people who make fakes are getting better at convincing her that her internet bargains are actually genuine.
This kind of consumer needs brand owners to provide more information about the differences between real and fake products, as well as information that encourages her to be more suspicious of websites that claim to be offering genuine products at low prices, said Scafidi.
The second type is the Covetous Consumer. This person wants to be seen with the latest must-have brand, and wants it whether it is real or not. Brand owners need to choke her supply of fakes, as well as helping to foster a climate in which counterfeits are seen as an embarrassment, rather than as an acceptable alternative to the real thing.
Experiential Consumers want a story to tell about their purchase. These are the people who treat a shopping spree for fakes in Shenzhen or in the alley ways of Hong Kong as a key part of their holiday to southern China. To reach these consumers, brand owners should emphasize the costs involved in making and selling fakes, including the link to terrorism and organized crime, and the use of child labour.
“Not all of these messages will be effective because people have heard them many time,” said Scafidi. “But at the margins, some may be convinced that the experience of buying fakes makes them part of something that they don’t want to be.”
The fourth consumer is the Anti-corporate Consumer. This person wears her fakes with pride, and although she may claim to be “culture-jamming”, she can’t resist wearing big name brands.
Scafidi said that this consumer may only respond to legal threats, and referred to French legislation that makes it an offence to buy, as well as to sell, counterfeits.
Finally, there are Co-creators. These people adapt and modify brands in parodies or works of art, which may or may not be for commercial gain. Scafidi pointed to the example of Haute Diggity Dog’s Chewy Vuiton range of toys for dogs, which mimic Louis Vuitton’s range of purses and luggage.
“They may or may not be harmful,” said Scafidi. “It isn’t outright counterfeiting, so the issue becomes an internal protection strategy issue.”
Rather than focusing all of their attention on cutting the supply of fakes, brand owners should also tackle demand by leveraging the media that makes dissemination of counterfeits easy, she added.
For example, they should consider using the social networking phenomenon to create their own consumer communities, as the creators of Barbie have done. People who buy the dolls can enter the product’s serial number into a website to gain access to a chat room where they can meet other Barbie doll owners.
Brand owners could also look at ways of using RFID technology so that consumers carrying a genuine product – such as a purse – would be alerted when they met someone else carrying another bona fide article.
“Technology can be a danger to brands, but it can also create an opportunity,” Scafidi concluded.
