Market focus: brand protection | 53Commerce (ICC). ‘The pandemic has also provided opportunities “There is no silver bullet when for criminal organizations that seek to take advantage of the rise in demand and subsequent shortages of parts and products. Reduced it comes to brand protection. volume of genuine materials allows criminals to offer counterfeit There is no single solution raw materials that contaminate supply chains.’Though this may sound like a defeatist mentality, that the that will completely stop any rise in counterfeiting is an unstoppable force that cannot be combated, there are ways to slow down the progress. To ensure counterfeiting”that a company’s product and its brand are at least more diffcult to counterfeit.over the top of the container is a sticker that is meant to be How to protect your brand broken when the consumer opens it. Underneath that top is From fuorescent inks, to taggants, to frangible flms, to RFID tags, typically a piece of plastic or aluminum that needs to be peeled there are several security-based products available on the market off before it can be poured. For this application, that level of to protect brands. But how does a company decide which methods protection is enough.to implement? But for pharmaceuticals, where the risk of counterfeit products With the number of options a company can choose from, it may could literally mean life or death, the approach to protection is be easy to fall into option paralysis, where the amount of decisions vastly different.and choices to select from can make it overwhelming. ‘Brand protection needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. ‘There are a lot of factors to take into account when you’re As the price of the item goes up, so does the price of the tamper developing a brand protection strategy,’ says Tessa Eastman, evidence products the brand owners are looking to use,’ says Welch. connected products strategist at Systech International, a company He adds that to ensure a product doesn’t get tampered with or that develops software suites for authentication and traceability faked, a layered approach towards brand protection is required. systems to combat counterfeiting, prevent diversion and meet Utilizing a high-tech singular approach or visible and invisible regulatory compliance requirements. ‘It’s not enough to just put a protection makes it harder for a counterfeiter to fgure out exactly hologram. What are you putting the holograms on? How do you what is happening on the label and/or packaging itself, thus making know it’s going to be secure? Will it solve your problems? Do you it harder to counterfeit.know what your problems are? It’s a deeper conversation than Gerben van Wjik, sales and marketing director at Luminescence just fnding a solution itself. There are a lot of solutions out there Sun Chemical Security, a manufacturer of security inks developing offered by analog and digital providers.’ custom-made inks that meet the exacting technical requirements Avery Dennison, for instance, provides a wide range of products, needed by its customers, shares a similar sentiment.both visible and invisible, as well as digital-based security methods ‘There is no silver bullet when it comes to brand protection. There like RFID and NFC. Finding the right security label always depends is no single solution that will completely stop any counterfeiting,’ on the product itself and the level of security it needs. says Wjik. ‘You have to look at the case itself and see where the For example, think of a container of orange juice. Typically, problem is created – whether it’s at the supply chain level or in the shop level – from here you have to look at what solves your issue.’Figuring out where the faws are in one’s security can be a diffcult task. But, Welch says, a layered approach can be a safe bet to ensure that the brand and product are protected. However, utilizing just visible or invisible security may not be the best approach.‘Any time you can have a layered approach to brand protection, it’s a good thing,’ says Eastman. ‘In that layered approach, you should defnitely recognize why you’re using each layer of protection and whether they are really complimenting or augmenting each other and not just two features you’ve used just to use them.’Systech developed e-Fingerprint, a product leveraging serialization. It utilizes a camera system installed onto the converting line to inspect and identify any sort of data carrier – such as QE-code to a UPC to a pharmaceutical data matrix – and to fnd the micro variations which are inherently caused by the printing processes.‘Within these data carriers, there are small micro variations that we can pick up on and create a unique digital identity for each individual unit without printing anything on it. Just leveraging what’s already been printed,’ says Eastman.There are many different means of protecting a company’s brand from counterfeiters, but, whether it’s a smart system or an analog product, due to the nature of the supply chain – especially in its current state – there are going to be breaks. There are going to be moments where cargo is ‘lost,’ and these are the spots where counterfeiters will be able to ease their way into the supply chain.Where protection mattersThe brand protection puzzle doesn’t begin and end with an ink, a Oct - Dec 2022