Keeping it real
I’ve recently been visiting FernMark Licensees, asking them about the key benefit of having the FernMark Licence logo on their products. And the word I hear over and over again? ‘Authenticity’.
Authentic means to be real or genuine; not copied or false. And worryingly for brands everywhere, authenticity is facing a losing battle against counterfeiting.
Counterfeiting currently accounts for USD $600 billion of global trade annually. We see it all the time. And chances are at some point in our lives, many of us have succumbed to the lure of super-cheap sunglasses, handbags, watches, clothes or something else. After all, why pay full price when you can get the same product, of similar or slightly lesser quality, for a quarter of the price?
But these sorts of counterfeit goods are yesterday’s news. The bigger worry for smaller countries is that counterfeiters are getting smarter and starting to replicate products – products you wouldn’t normally associate with counterfeiting, products that have earned their success through provenance. Put differently, they’re piggybacking on the hard-earned reputation of countries just like ours.
A problem for a small country like New Zealand
For countries like New Zealand, counterfeiting is a problem we can’t afford to ignore. That’s because we rely heavily on our country’s origin stories, national brand and reputation to prosper and generate export dollars. One big concern is that when inferior products become affiliated with our country, everything we’ve worked hard for becomes compromised.
Over the last 12 months, Manuka Honey has been hitting the headlines as being a victim of counterfeiting. This was discovered when reports showed more Manuka honey being exported than New Zealand was producing. And prior to Manuka Honey, Infant Milk Formula was heavily scrutinised, as various reports came about when sub-standard products were claimed to be made in New Zealand when they weren’t.
That's where the FernMark comes in
All of this leads us back to our FernMark Licence Programme and helps us understand why licensees are finding it so useful to be part of. Our application process means that a product or service only receives the licence if it’s authentically born of New Zealand. So our mission is to make sure the world knows that when they see the FernMark, they can be absolutely sure it’s the real deal.
Help is at hand
To further alleviate this problem, we’ve employed the services of Yellow Brand Protection. As a specialist, online anti-counterfeiting provider, they monitor over 800 online marketplaces (such as EBay, Alibaba, etc.), social media platforms and other e-commerce websites, globally. Any product listed by a FernMark Licensee is automatically included on the monitoring service, then Yellow will remove illicit adverts from the web, through strong relationships with the local platforms. They also keep copies of all adverts for any additional legal action that we wish to take on behalf of our Licensees.
Get your stamp of authenticity.