Online commerce and digital media have exploded during the Covid-19 pandemic. But, while older customers may have made their very first online transaction, younger generations, including millennials and “Gen-Z“, have already made the Internet their second home. This has led to the emergence of a new type of marketing tool: influencers.
The growth of influencer marketing.
First rejected by many, the reach of influencer marketing has grown rapidly. In November, for example, 16-year-old Charli D’Amelio became the first TikTok user to reach 100 million followers. [1], which makes it a valuable partner for various brands.
Influencer marketing these days doesn’t even stop with real people.
Creative agencies are now diving into the world of virtual influencers, such as digital avatar Lil Miquela [2], who has 2.9 million followers on Instagram. The Avatar performed at a Covid-proof online music festival last July, has been used to get Americans to vote, and has actively raised funds for charities.
As the world around us continues to change rapidly, brand owners are adapting and modifying their marketing strategies to make the most of new opportunities, with TikTok in particular, the latest in social media, which should now be on the radar of social media. trademark holders. For more information, please download our Guide “TikTok for trademark owners [3]“.
The world of deceptive marketing.
However, there is a darker side to influencer marketing that brand owners would be well advised not to ignore and new threats keep appearing. Take for example the “dupe posts [4]“, a practice that appeared on TikTok which consists of reporting content using hashtags such as #dupe to indicate links to counterfeit or pirated content.
The account is Alexarosehealy [5], which describes itself as “another millennial on TikTokis a good example. With a follower count of only a few thousand, you could say that she is far from being an influencer. However, some of her videos have been viewed over a million times. Why? Because of these hashtags and related links to products in online marketplaces.
Most of these ” marketplace , Including sites such as Amazon, have anti-counterfeiting controls in place. Hashtags such as #dupe are thus used to inform potential consumers that the item in question is a counterfeit product.
This not only makes it difficult for trademark owners to monitor counterfeiting in online marketplaces, but also indicates the scale of the market for counterfeit products and the agility of counterfeiters.
What should trademark owners do?
Obviously, it’s more important than ever to have an effective online brand protection strategy in place – and one that won’t drain all of your resources.
The first step in establishing such a strategy should therefore be to identify – and regularly review – threats and use this knowledge to put in place an effective method of enforcing rights and protecting trademark reputation.
We recommend focusing on five main channels, in particular: apps, domain names, merchant sites, social media, and website content. Given the size and rate of growth of these channels, automated monitoring and enforcement is the key to success.
We believe that a modern problem requires a modern solution. This is why our online trademark protection service is designed to deal with threats to your brand in the various online distribution channels, promptly implementing the necessary measures to stop the infringements as quickly as possible.
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