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Search engine giant, Google has dominated newspapers around the world this week with it’s striking revelation that it has created a new parent holding company – Alphabet. As a well established brand, Google will continue to use it’s world renowned name for it’s search and other search related subsidiaries. Speculators suggest the reasoning behind this sudden restructuring is to minimise risk to each individual company that will housed under the Alphabet umbrella. For many years the worlds most famous search engine has been investing in new ventures and R&D, drone development, medical care and automated car transport.

So why is all this relevant to brand management, marketing and business development? CEO and co-founder Larry page, has made a bold move in choosing an unusual name, and indeed distinct domain name for the new parent company – alphabet.xyz. This curious choice of domain extension .xyz has left many confused and bewildered. Following convention, surely alphabet.com would have been a safer, more preferred choice. New theories are emerging on this bizarre and mysterious decision.

Speculators suggest Google is revolutionising the nature of branding. Stepping away from traditional modes of in-your-face branding where logos, trademarks and all associated brand imagery would be plastered over goods, unmissable to the eye, new trends amongst some of the worlds leading brands suggest a change in previous practice. A paper recently released, ‘The Rise of Inconspicuous Consumption’ by professors Belk, Eckhardt and Wilson illustrates a stark change in the relationship between consumer and branded products. In contrast to the blatant branding of the 1980’s and 1990’s where consumers wanted to overtly show-off high end luxury goods as a symbol of status and accomplishment, new trends have been developing in todays market.

Emerging consumer trends suggest a preference for unobtrusively and subtly marked products. Luxury brands are aware of this behavioural change in todays consumer. Essentially, less is more. Apple’s iconic logo is instantly recognisable even without it’s name. It’s products are characterised by simplicity and sharpness of design. Tiffany has stripped it’s brand right down to a simple “T”.

Google are somewhat contributing to this trend. They could choose any number of new gTLD’s .global, .tech, .business or alternatively purchased alphabet.com from BMW. It’s not as if capital is lacking. Instead they have opted for a different and somewhat vague, understated extension. Since the news exploded a few days ago, the .xyz registry has seen an exponential rise in domain registrations. Fears are spreading that Alphabet’s strategic move may encourage and increase in cyber-squatting and phishing.

Whatever the outcome of this unexpected branding endeavour, the move marks a significant step away from the dominance of the dot.com days. The jury is out on the success of the new gTLD rollout initiated by ICANN since the end of 2013. Nonetheless, Google’s bold move somewhat endorses the positive potentiality of new gTLD’s in future brand management, marketing and business development.

dotNice – experts in digital brand protection
www.dotnice.com

For more information email: brandprotection-emea@dotnice.com

Digital Brand Protection For Start-Ups

Making your start -up a success is no easy feat. Recently Forbes magazine revealed a bleak truth that 9 out of 10 startups fail. It goes without saying that entrepreneurs face many challenges when developing their business into a thriving successful enterprise. One key feature that arises time and time again regarding the failure of a startup is their inability to garner trust from new customers. Without loyal customers, you have no business. One of the greatest challenges facing brands today is building your brand name into something or someone associated as trustworthy. Building this trust with your prospective customers is a true recipe for success. It naturally makes sense that start-ups should protect their online brand identity.

How can a start-up with limited budgets and resources fully safeguard their online identity and brand integrity?
We outlined a list of precautionary steps below on how to safeguard your digital brand presence without breaking the bank!

1. Invest a Little, Save Alot.

Invest a little time and revenue in developing your domain name portfolio. If your business is expanding into new markets, ensure you have trademarks registered in all countries you operate in. Investing a little revenue in trademark monitoring will help you manage your intellectual property assets proficiently. This will allow you to be aware if some third party is trying to harness your brand equity. It also will allow you to identify any case of infringement.

2. Embrace New Opportunities

Optimise your domain name portfolio by registering appropriate new gTLD’s. When used correctly, domain names can be integrated as part of an effective digital marketing campaign for start-ups with limited funds and resources. In this way you can further develop your digital asset portfolio, whilst also generating web traffic to your website. Two birds, one stone!

3. Stay One Step Ahead: Defensive Registrations.

Following on from celebrities like Taylor Swift, Kevin Spacey and Oprah Winfrey, defensively registering ‘controversial’ domain extensions may save your business huge fortunes down the line. Many enterprises are purchasing the domain extension dot-SUCKS in a bid to ensure that opportunistic domain-squatters or brand-hijackers don’t get the chance. Failing to register your brand name with this controversial gTLD could result in your brand falling victim to online slander, brand-jacking and defamatory abuse.

Alternatively, you can turn something bad into something good. Many online brands are choosing to redirect Web traffic from a .SUCKS domain to a ‘customer service forum’ where customer comments can be voiced. This is an excellent example of turning a bad situation into a good one. This would allow you to always stay informed of what your customers think of your product or service and allows you great opportunity to further enhance your customer relationships. Adopting this ethos when your business is still in start-up phase will definitely contribute to your success.

4. Renew, not Regret

Renewing an expired domain name is considerably cheaper than negotiating a domain sale with a third party. In the long run, renewals are cheaper than legal arbitration proceedings. Many start-ups simply would not have the capital to recover a domain name from a domain squatter. Therefore, It is important to make sure you have enough resources to monitor domain expirations, particularly if you have a global presence.

5. Trademark Trolling

All Startups must monitor the domain names related to their trademark. Failing to do so could result in a domain-squatter or typo-squatter registering a web address. Investing a little capital in trademark surveillance services will ultimately save you potentially huge financial costs in the future.

6. Reputation Reporting

It is essential in todays digitised world for startups to monitor their online brand reputation. Web tracker software can provide valuable insights into the public’s perception of your brand or product. Approximately 8 in 10 American consumers read customer reviews prior to purchasing and item or service. In other reports, it was revealed that 73% of prospective customers considered positive consumer reviews as a deciding factor in making them trust a particular brand. As startups begin to scale, it is crucially important that while you establish your online reputation, you also safeguard it from slander. Maintaining awareness of what is being said in the public space (social media, online platforms and peer to peer networks) will be key to your start ups survival.

Although scaling your startup can seem like a daunting task, implementing some of the steps above will ensure your businesses future success in the digital space. Maintaining a solid digital brand protection strategy will assure that your business will not only survive, but thrive.

dotNice International Limited – Experts in Digital Brand Protection
For more information email: brandprotection-emea@dotnice.com

Surviving in the digital space can pose difficult challenges to business owners. In order for businesses to survive today in the digital world they must have an online presence. It goes with out saying that traditional models of business have dramatically changed with the advent of the internet. The digital age has brought enormous opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs and established businesses alike. The global market is within arms reach with merely a laptop and a solid wifi connection. Unknown performers can suddenly become an internet sensation over night, businesses can increase their global reach into new markets with minimal cost and consumers have greater choice and say in the product they choose, or don’t choose to purchase.

Indeed, the digital space has created unprecedented opportunities for businesses to grow and evolve. However, it also presents brands with novel challenges. Global IP management is complicated and digital technology is constantly changing at an ever increasing pace. Many brand or marketing managers naturally are intimidated by this new, innovative digital landscape.

Savvy, intelligent brands invest time and money into promoting, protecting and growing their brand identity and reputation online. They understand that a brand’s online presence is intrinsically connected to a brands bottom line and survival. However, many organisations have no concrete or focused strategy for managing their most important intangible asset – their online presence.

So, what constitutes a brands digital or online presence?

All brand portfolios today are digital or at least should be.

Smart digital brands view their digital assets (domain names, social media platforms etc…) from a holistic perspective. This all- encompassing approach to brand management as a single entity is at the core of thorough digital brand protection strategies. In order to fully manage your online presence, brands need to monitor and manage their domain name portfolio (gTLD’s , ccRLD’s and IDN’s) track their registered trademarks, supervise social media sites and of course protect all their digital assets from external abuse or internal misuse. The only way to succeed in the digital space is to manage your digital asset portfolio centrally.

All organisations want to protect their brand online at minimal cost. They seek to increase their global reach and break into new markets whilst securing their digital assets against fraudulent online behaviour and cybercrime. This can be a daunting task for brand managers managing established international brands due to the size and complexity of their digital asset or IP portfolio. Scaling smb’s who wish to expand into international markets also find it difficult to implement a digital brand protection strategy. Many can be confused as to where to start. Needless to say, whether you’re a long established global brand or a developing SMB, your enterprises success in any case relies on the effectiveness of your digital brand protection strategy. Ultimately, spending a little will save a lot!

How can intangible assets like digital assets be protected and managed?

Managing your digital asset portfolio involves three key essential steps: monitoring, managing and enforcing.

1.Monitoring:

Are you monitoring all domain names related to your trademark internationally? Trademark surveillance and monitoring are essential in preventing IP infringement or online abuse in protecting your domain names. This ongoing supervision and investigation is crucial when safeguarding your digital assets as it ensures you are aware when third parties attempt to harness your brand equity.

Similarly, who is monitoring your online reputation? Have you implemented tools to gauge online sentiment on social media and peer to peer networks regarding your digital brand? Have you identified any cases of defamation against your brand reputation? Successful supervision of your brand reputation involves monitoring of the whole web. Integrating online monitoring toolkits will allow you to keep your finger on the pulse of public perception pertaining to your brand. Maintaining monthly brand sentiment reports will help you stay on top. A proactive approach is required.

2 Managing:

Enterprises often fail to competently manage their digital asset portfolios as many of the departments responsible for such supervision often work in isolation from one another. Managing digital assets often is the responsibilIty of three key departments within an organisation – a. Marketing/ Brand management, b. Legal or c. IT. In most instances, these three departments generally work in silo’s and fail to communicate with each other. Employing an effective digital brand protection strategy engenders that all three departments work collectively.

When managing a domain name portfolio, communication between all three departments is essential. Using a centralised platform that aggregates all important information about your portfolio will greatly improve management processes. In many cases, outsourcing the management of your portfolio to an experienced and specialist third party often yields better results than internal management.

3. Enforcement

All organisations with an online presence know of the threats that face their digital brand each day. Cybercrime is increasing every year and the expense it can incur for digital brands is enormous. Enforcing a thorough digital brand protection strategy ensures enterprises’ have safeguards in place to defend against instances of cybercrime. It allows them to act efficiently and cost effectively when required. Applying a proactive approach to enforcing your brands online IP rights will safeguard your brands most important intangible assets. Recovering domain names from third parties can be a complex process for those unfamiliar with UDRP. Consulting with legal experts who have extensive experience in this field will save you time and money and ultimately benefit your digital brand.

dotNice International Limited Experts in digital brand protection

For more information email: brandprotection-emea@dotnice.com

 

We were delighted to speak with Salvador Camacho – Attorney in the Social Welfare department of the Mexican Department of Social Security (IMSS). Salvador also has worked for one of the top Intellectual property firms in Mexico – Arochi & Lindner, specializing in IP Enforcement and protection and recovery of domain names for international clients before WIPO and NAF.

We asked him to discuss the topic of digital brand protection in the LATAM market.

 

Why is digital brand protection important in your professional opinion?

Digital brand protection nowadays is essential in order to develop a strong presence in the Digital Environment. Trademark owners are the principal victims of unlawful online activity regarding domain names such as cybersquatting, typosquatting and new illegal online conduct such as soundsquatting. This situation is not only affecting brands, but also users are nowadays victims of illegal conduct like malware or phishing.

In this context, a digital brand protection strategy not only protects trademarks owners but also their customers.

 

As an Intellectual Property specialist, what top tips would you give to trademark owners in the LATAM market on protecting their digital assets?

For different reasons, the LATAM market has been lagging behind in regard to the protection of digital assets. Nevertheless, intellectual property infringers have been developing an interesting and valuable market around those unprotected assets for years. In this context, the top tips that I would give are the following:

  • Search for professional advice in order to have a better understanding of the value of your digital assets and their subsequent protection.
  • Protect your trademark in every country that you are planning to offer your product or service.
  • Register gTLDs, ccTLDs and IDNs for your brand even before submitting the application for the trademark.
  • Have a strong presence on Social Media. This works not only to avoid fake profiles and bad reputation, but also presents excellent branding opportunities.
  • Be aware of the new gTLD’s launching. It is important to register your trademark as domain name before someone gets in there before you.

 

What common or frequent mistakes do you regularly see trademark owners making in the LATAM market?

The trademarks owners in LATAM are very interested in protecting their intangible assets before the Intellectual Property Governmental Authorities and that is truly important, but they are completely forgetting the Digital Environment. They are registering their trademarks in several countries but only registering one domain name, generally the .COM gTLD. In my experience, this is the biggest mistake from trademark owners in LATAM market regarding digital brand protection.

This situation has generated the proliferation of cybersquatted domain names on ccTLD strings. Therefore, when trademark owners seek to register their trademarks as domain names on ccTLD endings for digital branding purposes, they discover that somebody else has already registered it and is asking a 6 figure number for the domain. There are enforcement methods to recover the domain name, but they are more expensive than defensively registering a domain name. A proactive approach is a more cost-effective option.

 

What is your opinion of ICANN’s new gTLD program? Should it be viewed as a positive opportunity for scaling businesses who missed out on the .com era due to timing?

In 1974, the French writer Jacques Bergier gave some predictions of the future of telecommunications in his book named “The Planet of Impossible Possibilities”. I will quote him and say that ICANN’s new gTLD program is “The Planet of Infinite Possibilities” because it will change the way that we know, understand and use Internet.

This initiative definitively will affect the LATAM market, specifically for trademark owners, who believe that having just one domain name will suffice. According to SEDO’s new gTLD awareness report published on 2014, 75% of internet users are unaware of the new extensions.

As in any unexplored market, this early stage is an interesting opportunity for scaling digital brands. With extensions such as .LAT (Available on Sunrise period until April 16th) precisely focused on LATAM market, the prompt registration of trademarks as domain names is crucial to have a strong digital brand presence in LATAM Digital Environment.

 

In terms of controversial gTLD’s like .SUCKS or .FAIL do you think they should be made available to the public?

Actually, only trademarks registrations for .SUCKS are available. The Consumer advocate subsidy goes from $10.00 USD per year but it will be available until September and you will be unable to host a website. The Standard registration will be available on Sunrise period for $249.00 USD per year.

The actual controversy is related to the Sunrise Premium registration of trademarks registered in ICANN’s TMCH. Trademark owners will have to pay $2,499.00 USD per year, so companies like Apple and Yahoo already have bought their respective .SUCKS domains, in order to protect their trademarks. Some trademark owners are calling this business model extortion disguised as registration, but others are appealing to the legitimate right to sell the gTLD at the desired price.

As freedom of speech is one of the pillars of the Internet, I believe they should be made available to the general public. Furthermore, WIPO’s UDRP decisions have granted legitimate interests to owners of sucks or gripe domain names over trademark rights.

Finally, everyone that has been publishing articles for the past few weeks about this controversial gTLD has reached the same conclusion as me: If you don’t want to be a TRADEMARK.SUCKS, then just deliver a good product or service and try not to suck.

 

 

dotNice – Experts in digital brand protection

For more information on domain names registration and management email – brandprotection-emea@dotnice.com

1. Barack Obama’s Re-election Campaign.

In 2012 the most powerful man in the world, US president Barack obama, fell victim to cybersquatting/ domain squatting. Before the Presidents advisors could announce that they would be turning the remainder of reelection campaign funds into a new nonprofit, Organising for Action, savvy cybersquatters saw the great financial potential in securing the domain name first. They claimed organisingforaction.com and organisingforaction.org beating the president to the punch!

2. Bank of America

One of the worlds most lucrative banks, Bank of America was involved in a high profile case of cybersquatting when opportunistic domain squatters saw the potential in strategically buying domain names for possible future bank mergers and subsequently selling them on eBay.The domains for sale included bankofamericamerrilllynch.com and bofaml.com.

3. Youtube

Global giant, Youtube was targeted by typo-squatters in a highly publicised corporate typo-squatting case. The domain name yuube.com was bought with the sole purpose of targeting YouTube users, anticipating that a large amount of YouTube traffic would mis-spell the domain name. When a user accidentally typed yuube.com they would be redirected to a malicious website or page.

4.American Express

A high profile case of phishing occurred when fraudulent emails purportedly from Global corporation, American Express were sent to an unknown number of recipients. A simple DNS change could have been made to thwart this spoofed email, but American Express failed to make any changes.

5.Burger King

Burger King fell victim to a bad case of brand-jacking when the company’s logo was hi-jacked and replaced with an advertisement of it’s main competitor, McDonalds. Promptly after this, a fraudulent ‘news’ story followed purporting that Burger King had been sold to its rival Mc Donalds as a result of persistent drug use of its employees. The hack lasted for approximately an hour until the twitter account was suspended.

Source: Wikipedia.

Top tips from Laurent Muzzellec, Director of Digital Marketing MSc – Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School

The Evolution of Marketing Strategy

Consumer behaviour has changed dramatically in recent years. Marketing practice must change in line with such striking transformations in consumer behaviour. We spoke with Laurent Muzzellec, Director of the Digital Marketing programme at Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School who explained how marketing strategy, principles and best practice have evolved over the past number of years. Originally Proctor and Gambles traditional marketing methodology was once the accepted framework that many organisations emulated around the globe.

‘This old model focused on the consumer’s first moment of truth, that is when people first come in contact with your product or brand through a tv/radio/ print advertisement. This then would lead to the consumers second moment of truth which was wholly experiential. This is the point at which the customer would experience your product or service. Based on this model, traditional marketing relied heavily on brand awareness and association.’

Laurent continues to explain how digitisation completely revolutionised traditional marketing models.

‘It was Google who first identified a key area in consumer behaviour that traditional marketing frameworks failed to distinguish – the “Zero moment of Truth” or the “Search”. They identified an untapped stage in brand engagement. Consumer need was followed by search which was followed by online purchasing which was subsequently was followed by the consumers experience of the product.’

With the explosion of Social media caused further changes came along.

‘Social media has allowed for a further stage to be added to the consumer experience allowing customers the ability to share their experience with a given product, service or brand. Essentially one persons experience with a product or brand becomes or influences others. Or to put it another way, one persons experience becomes anothers zero moment of truth.’

Marketers understand the inherent power of word of mouth. A great example of an organisation that fosters s amazon.com are a multinational that excellent on sharing communities -review platform, comment sharing.


The Common Digital Marketing Mistakes Businesses Can Make

Laurent advocates that marketeers and CMO’s need to be aware of the social/experiential nature of consumers’ relationship with social media and how it can affect their relationship with your brand.

‘Ask yourself – where do you want to intervene to affect and influence the consumer journey. You need to know your customers digital journey. For instance if you discover that the greatest success you have (in converting prospective customers to actual customers) is at the search stage or zero moment of Truth, then invest in adwords. If your not of the first page of google you are not anywhere. Invest in SEO.’

To give another example, Laurent strongly recommends developing new sharing platforms to enhance your customers experience.

‘Ask yourself – if your business has particularly strong customer satisfaction rates? If this is the case, consider implementing sharing platforms. Be open to facilitating your customers ability to share their positive experience with your brand/product. Mobile has revolutionised this as all these moments are happening simultaneously.’
‘We search,share, experience and buy all at the same time.’

Sustainably Create Content and with ROI in Mind – ‘Thinking Outside the Box Philosophy’

All the metrics available online facilitate the decision making process of a brand manager. Energy and focus should be allocated to proven methodologies like AB testing. This is traditionally how ROI can be measured. Laurent recommends that a sizeable portion of budgets must be allocated to untested, creative campaigns.

‘Sometimes you have to Forget about ROI and adopt a ‘Lets try something new and see if it works’ approach. Take risks and try something innovative and unprecedented.’

Coca- cola have been spearheading this new philosophy with their new content marketing strategy – Content 2020 which marks a monumental shift from traditional marketing practise. Their outlook is experimental. This global brand understand that excellent content is the most vital currency when it comes to brand engagement. Their key focus is to foster and enhance the personal relationship and association a consumer has with a brand.

‘Brands need to cultivate feeling of connectedness to the extent that consumers want to share.’

Reaching Your Objectives

It goes without saying that the most successful marketing campaigns are those that reach their objectives. Laurent advises on the recipe for marketing success lies in ‘Maintaining focus and clarity as to what your campaign objectives are’. He elaborates on Cadbury’s humorous and memorable video with Eamon Dunphy, and John Giles. Why was this video such a success? What contributed to the adverts enormous global reach on youtube.

Laurent attributes the advertisements great success to cadbury’s ability create great synergy between the online and the offline.

‘Consumers don’t see the world as online or offline. They don’t consider what type of device they are using -tablet, mobile or PC or whether its downloaded or streamed. However, these are key questions that marketing departments have to constantly consider. Marketers must think like their customer and create user friendly or customer centric platforms where content can be shared and easily disseminated. Ease of sharing and quality of content are key components of any successful digital marketing campaign.’

 

Rebranding – Do’s and Don’ts

Brand equity is developed up over long term sustained investment in advertising that eventually will transpire to have positive brand association in the mind of your consumer or potential customers. Laurent imparts a few words of warning to brand managers considering a total overhaul of their existing branding.

‘Of course I would advocate revamping or refreshing brand logos on an ongoing basis to ensure your brand doesn’t fade out or becoming obsolete and dated . If you are considering dramatic rebranding, essentially what you are doing is taking all the stuff you’ve built over the years and throwing it away. I would advise only to do that if there is a lot of negative equity related to your brand. I would caution against too radical measures being taken. It’s an ongoing process. Don’t start from scratch if it’s not entirely necessary’

The Transformation of the Traditional Marketing Campaign

Laurent has strong objections to the term ‘campaign’. To him it suggests a beginning and an end. The digital age has rendered this traditional marketing practice obsolete.
‘With the explosion of social media and digital technology, marketing practice should have no beginning or end. It is an ongoing process. Brand managers need to stop thinking in terms of finite campaigns or campaign timelines.’

Digital marketing strategy has to be seen as cyclical in nature and should focus on growing customer engagement. ‘Jumping from one campaign to another with no continuity or generating lots of noise and social interaction only to suddenly end what you’ve started makes no sense.’

Laurent Muzzellec, Director of the Masters programme of Digital Marketing in Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. Laurent also has lectured in DCU, UCD and also worked as a Marketing Consultant for Volkswagen. He’s also a frequent contributor to many international marketing journals. We’re delighted to have Laurent here to discuss many topics in digital marketing best practice and brand management.

Listen to the original Podcast here: https://soundcloud.com/dotnice/podcast-with-laurent-muzzellec

There has been much talk over the last few years of the importance of digital marketing, how to create online marketing strategies, how to grow your online client base and following, how to build a brand’s online presence and how to conduct customer service via digital channels like twitter and Facebook. However there is very little conversation on the topic of how such brands’ can be protected once they have been established online. Businesses allocate massive marketing budgets to drive their digital presence. It would naturally make sense to safeguard your brand after so much capital has been invested. Some of the topics we shall be discussing over the coming weeks and months will cover the preventative measures your business can take to avoid such risks as brand reputation, revenue loss and of course legal litigation.

A key area of discussion over the next few months will focus on Domain Portfolio Management. Over the past year major developments and changes have rocked the world of domain names with ICANN , (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) releasing some 1,500 new domain names.
For instance, the music industry has just introduced .band as a new domain name available to online vendors. For yoga enthusiasts and teachers, the domain name .yoga was recently released; A plethora of new and unique domain names including .organic, .buzz, .beer even .wtf have recently been added to the domain name reservoir. This development can present great opportunities for brands endeavouring to expand and grow their online presence. It will allow enterprises to further develop targeted personalised marketing campaigns to new prospective clients and existing client bases. Needless to say, such transformations in the global domain registerary also possess threats to existing businesses. Opportunistic domain squatters may pre-emptively purchase a number of domain names that they imagine would hold equitable value to global brands. The news that Ashton Kutcher recently purchased a number of domain names for his baby daughter before she was even born, highlights the growing importance of reserving a domain name and also the growing awareness of online intellectual property. Brands must immediately consider how their domains are being managed, if at all!

Opportunities for cybersquatters are rapidly diminishing, because most businesses now know that securing domain names is a high priority. This has been happening many years and global brands are only now waking up to the extent of this problem. Companies that have won back their names from alleged cybersquatters following rulings from WIPO include Christian Dior, Nike, Deutsche Bank and Microsoft. Brands need to be aware of not only their current markets but also their potential markets. They need to protect themselves in both prospective future markets in addition to existing markets they currently operate in. Staying one step ahead is of critical importance.

Another issue our blog will discuss over the coming months is the problem of
Typo-squatting. Typo-squatting is similar to cybersquatting and is based on the probability that a certain number of Internet users will mis-spell or incorrectly type the name of a Web site (or actually its URL) when surfing the Web. For example, a common misspelling or a foreign language spelling. Back in 2006 to 2008, there existed an typo-squatted variant of Google listed as ‘goggle.com’. Landing on this fraudulent website would automatically cause the domain to download computer viruses and other destructive software including the dreaded antispyware program SpySheriff.

Another potential problem facing online brands is Phishing. Phishing involves opportunistic cybercriminals installing malicious software or stealing personal information off of your computer. Like fishing, cybercriminals essentially ‘Phish’ for important data through creating fraudulent email messages, websites, and phone calls. A highly publicised instance of this occurred in 2008 when an online fraudster claimed to be the renowned actress Scarlett Johansson and set up a fake competition whereby she ‘offered herself’ in a threesome with two of the competition winners. The object of the online imposter was to harvest email addresses of the unknowing competition participants.

Another fast evolving form of cyber-crime is brand jacking. Brand-jacking is a particular form of cyber crime whereby someone assumes the online identity of a person or brand with the intention of stealing the organisation or persons brand equity. An example of this happened to US Republican Sarah Palin and US President Barack Obama whereby falsified Facebook pages were created to damage their online presence. Furthermore, in 2006 a fake advert for a Starbucks Frappuccino was devised by an anonymous brand jacker who sought to damage the brands reputation. The objective was to highlight the contrast between consumption and poverty. Such parodies can ultimately destroy a brands equity as social media facilitates the rapid and viral dissemination of such fraudulent material.

In many cases the examples quoted above could be avoided if certain steps had been taken to carefully and thoroughly protect the brands listed. It often occurs that SMB’s and large corporations find themselves having to take costly legal action to fix what originally was a preventable problem. Enormous costs can be incurred if enterprises fail to implement and revise their digital brand protection strategy. In the year 2000, global brand Kodak won back its rights to kodak.ru after a long, tedious litigation process lasting a year and involving some twenty lawsuits. A further example of this occurred when multinational corporation Verizon won a $33 Million dollar lawsuit retrieving it’s domain name myverizonwireless.com from domain-quatters. These global brands had the financial means to pursue such costly litigation, many scaling brands establishing their online presence and scaling their business would not have such capital available.

Whether you’re an SMB or a large multinational, whether you work in the Tech industry or the entertainment industry, the same principles apply. Being prepared is key to guarantee your brands online presence and digital footprint is safeguarded.

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