Aiming high: conquering the counterfeiters

In 1954, Moncler put its first items of clothing into production. So far, so normal. But there’s more to it than that. Those first clothes were destined for high places, literally. An Italian group of mountaineers were setting off for the Himalayas, and needed equipment. Moncler provided it, and the Italians reached their goal: the summit of K2, the world’s second-highest mountain.

At the time, Moncler was a French company, though it has since been bought and is now headquartered in Milan, under the Industries SPA corporate banner. Alongside Moncler, the company also owns the Henry Cotton’s, Marina Yachting and Coast Weber & Ahaus brands. While these all face counterfeiting issues, Moncler is by far the most imitated in the portfolio, simply because it is the most widely known.

The brand protection team at Industries Group has a difficult task. The problems faced by the company are huge, it says. The brand protection activities for all the brands are managed by a central brand protection team, which comprises just one person in charge of criminal proceedings in Italy, of which there are thousands, and one in charge of online–related issues, and a single head of brand protection overseeing it all.

Looking East

There are two particular areas that require particular attention. The first is China, and the Asia Pacific region in general.

The vast majority of problems come from there, according to the team, as well as from Eastern Europe. A new brand protection team is being put together in the region at the moment, through Moncler Asia Pacific, a subsidiary company that is responsible for that part of the world, to combat not only the counterfeiters based in the country but also the challenges of developing and maintaining a strong relationship with customs officials.

One of the major challenges is to find reliable agencies to run investigations and help organise raids in China. Local knowledge is vital for a host of reasons, and the difficulty can often be finding a trustworthy, competent local agent who will be able to coordinate the team.

In the past, there have been situations in which an agency might tell a brand that it conducted a raid as requested, but it later emerges that the targets were not major players. It doesn’t make sense to raid little stores in small districts, and it’s much better to tackle the major wholesalers and factories. The challenge is identifying the targets, and having the infrastructure inside the country to carry out effective action against them.

Online activity

The Internet poses potential problems for all brands, but for high-end clothing companies, the sheer volume of infringement can look very daunting indeed. Moncler has experienced huge difficulties in the past, including auction sites selling fake goods, and people pretending to be official Moncler partners on their own websites.

Indeed, on Moncler’s website, the company lists more than 100 unauthorised domains that it has taken action against in recent years: cyberaquatters, typosquatters and those posing as official sellers are all listed, as well as websites that have used copyright-protected images to advertise counterfeit goods. But tackling this kind of activity, as and when it is identified, can only be part of the solution.

In the past year or so, the company’s online strategy has involved many Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) actions, stopping website activities and recovering domain names as well as running a monitoring and take-down programme for auction items.

But that strategy is being revised, at least in the way it’s implemented. In the past, it was run by several different consultants around the world. But of course, national boundaries have a very limited effect on how people use the Internet, so this approach ended up being unnecessarily fragmentary.

“THE COMPANY IS ABOUT TO IMPLEMENT ITS NEW STRATEGY, IN WHICH 25 PEOPLE WILL BE MONITORING ON A GLOBAL SCALE, TAKING DOWN AUCTIONS, AND SENDING CEASE AND DESIST LETTERS.”

The company is about to implement its new strategy, in which 25 people will be monitoring on a global scale, taking down auctions, and sending cease and desist letters. This network will be spread across several different countries, but will act cohesively, which should have a major impact on the coordination of the company’s online response to anticounterfeiting. There will be an extremely aggressive cease and desist programme, followed up with further action where necessary. Mere investment is not enough.

Of course, sending letters is not always going to have the desired effect. From time to time, it will be necessary to back up threats with action in court. For Industries Group, this holds no fear. The company is becoming more aggressive in terms of the courts, not just in Italy but in other jurisdictions, most notably China. One person in the new Asia Pacific team will take charge of civil litigation in China; it’s a priority to establish a track record of strong civil cases in the country.

In the region, the aim is to build up a brand reputation; this includes litigation, but also enhancing the relationship between the brand and the local customs authorities. This includes training sessions where representatives from the brand meet and interact with customs officers. The attitude is that investing time in training customs will pay off.

The model for this kind of relationship is in Italy, where Moncler has a long-standing and productive collaboration with the authorities, receiving regular requests from customs and other law enforcement authorities to identify seized products.

It is clear that the problem of counterfeiting will not be tackled overnight, if it can ever be tackled completely. But as those mountaineers who first climbed K2 would have known, even seemingly insurmountable tasks are achievable with the right preparation. For Industries Group, that means a coordinated, aggressive, cooperative, global approach to dealing with offenders both on and off line. It’s going in the right direction.