Targeting Buyers of Counterfeit Goods

• Author: Lyn S. Amine/Peter Magnusson

Governments, international policymakers and corporate intellectual property (IP) owners wage constant war against global counterfeiting. However, there are those with a clear interest in promoting this illegal trade, including the counterfeiters themselves and many consumers. Resistance on the supply side alone is inadequate to control or even curb the counterfeit trade. The demand side of the market, composed of consumers, must also be addressed. A framework is outlined to assist international marketing managers and other business people in understanding the important role of creative and proactive marketing in resisting both counterfeiters and consumers of their goods.

Most initiatives to thwart counterfeiting fail because consumer attitudes and behaviors are factored inadequately, if at all, into the analysis. This is surprising, given consumers' expectation that it is up to their governments to protect them against dangers from counterfeit medicines, car parts, airplane components and other potentially fatal products. Paradoxically, these same consumers defend their right to choose between expensive, genuine brand-name products and much cheaper but inferior counterfeits.

Most consumers believe that they can recognize counterfeit products. Many view these as a source of enjoyment, especially in the case of fashion items which are knowingly purchased at a lower price regardless of quality. Such consumer attitudes are at odds with legal standards, moral values, publicly stated corporate codes of conduct and even the consumers' own well-being. Even if consumers suspect potentially negative consequences, their desire to be fashionable and to keep up with friends and peers lead them to ignore these. If such attitudes are not factored into the analysis of consumer involvement in the counterfeit market, then initiatives to dissuade consumers from these purchases will remain ineffective.

Success in fighting counterfeits requires targeted actions involving all stakeholders on both the supply and the demand sides of the market as well as a clear-sighted evaluation of respective costs, benefits and trade-offs. Hence consumers are at the center of a complex global market in which several parties pursue their own interests, each involving conflicting cost-benefit analyses.

Consumer...