With the rapid adoption of technology and social media playing a more critical role in e-commerce trading, brandjacking, duplicate branding, copycat marketing and copybranding are becoming common threats to businesses.
In addition to revenue loss, brandjacking could cause irreparable damage to your company's image. There is no debate that your brand is your identity; your company's success largely depends on how you manage the public's perception of your brand.
Oftentimes, brandjacking, copycat marketing or duplicate strategies are also called brand name impersonation. Surprisingly, these schemes, while capable of causing reputational damage, are not illegal.
What is brandjacking?
Brandjacking occurs when a brand copy the identity, including shape, color, logo, etc., of a popular brand to mislead consumers of the popular brand. Some imitate a leading brand's trade dress or look to freeride on its popularity.
The objective of said strategy is to attract the consumers of the famous brand by mistaking it for copycat brands, copying their packaging designs, and selling them at a fraction of the price. This immoral and unfair practice taps into the famous brand's user base and saves hundreds of millions in pesos and years of brand-building initiatives.
More information is needed to estimate the total value of the brandjacking economy. However, MarkMonitor estimates the value to be over $141 billion globally. With the global counterfeit goods market, MarkMonitor estimates the value to exceed $1.7 trillion as of 2025. That's more than two percent of the world's current economic output.
In the Philippines, discount grocery chain Dali Grocery is noticeably aggressively expanding, marketing dupe products and exact copies of well-known products such as coffee, loaf bread, dairy, and condiments, among others.
Dali Grocery brands itself as a "Tatak Pinoy" despite some of its products being noticeably manufactured in other countries.
Among the products sold in Dali stores include a copy of Nutella (GoNutt), Datu Puti (Rajah Puro), Yakult (Bakakult), Star Margarine (Margie), Great Taste Coffee (Perfect Taste Coffee), and Gardenia (Grandiosa), among others.
If we observe the packaging design, we will see that it is very similar to the brands copied in font, font size, packaging color, overall design, etc.
As for the placement of products in Dali stores, dupes are noticeably placed beside the original brands. For a customer who is not too keen to observe, this technique is an apparent deception of customers.
The association of the original product with a more inferior dupe may cheapen the perception of the genuine item.
With all these in mind, I would like to know whether these brands with packaging designs similar to the original ones have passed the intellectual property right. If not, how is the Philippines faring regarding intellectual property protection?
How can brands protect their creativity and marketing expenses when getting their innovative products into the market?
Has the dupe product undergone rigorous testing similar to the original item?
Dupes are cheaper, but cheaper does not mean good. Everyone wants to feel like they are getting a good deal, but more than paying a cheap amount, there is no more significant deal than buying products with the best quality.
It is, therefore, time to review this bad marketing. Not only does it free ride on the back of successful brands, but it also deceives consumers into buying subpar products pushed by influencers and hard discount retailers, when in reality, it only serves their gain.
Brandjacking or dupe strategy can devastate a brand's reputation and hurt profits. In truth, sufficient enforcement measures are available to brands that seek to enforce their intellectual property rights against these bad actors. The problem is not the lack of laws or legislation to fight back but the lack of resources to deal with the enormity of the abuse.
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