Counterfeiters caught in the act
A leading FMCG brand discovers and acts in real-time to intercept a truckload of counterfeit products before it hits the market. This operation was enabled using Ennoventure’s anti-counterfeit and brand protection solution deployed on their products.
The backdrop
A cat and mouse problem
FMCG brands are unable to act quickly enough to discover and intercept shipments of counterfeit products, as they get disseminated in the market. They are usually a few steps behind the counterfeiters in the chase to prevent fakes from hitting the market.
The brands are often alerted to the presence of counterfeit or fake products when they have already spread across the market, and have started causing consumer complaints. Even when the brands are working closely with governmental and regulatory authorities, they are unable to provide information about the presence and location of fake products quickly enough to act.
Key challenge
The company knew that there were counterfeit products being spread in the market. Their challenge was to discover, capture and stop the products before getting into the retail stores.
Solution designReal-time pattern analysis for a heatmap showing density of fakes
1. A cloud based real-time tracking dashboard was enabled, which showed the mobile scans of products that were detected as fakes.
2. The real-time dashboard was able to show patterns based on the density of fake products overlaid on geographic maps. By using the patterns, a heatmaps is generated which could show a visualization of the penetration/distribution/spread of fake or counterfeit products.
3. By involving the consumers, the company now had an army of verifiers who were in the market. This massively increased the potential of an early discovery of fake products in the retail space.
4. This was exponentially more powerful than just a few people from the brand or regulatory authorities doing random checks on products.
5. Since the scanning happened at the level of the consumer, it prevented any corrupt retailer from hiding fake products or stocks when being audited or checked by the brand representatives or regulatory authorities.
6. The technology also helped honest retailers to sample their own products to find fakes, which helped quicker reporting. A retailer is in a position to scan the products before the products are lined up on their shelf. This brings one more gatekeeper to prevent counterfeits from getting into the hands of consumers.
7. The technology also helps convert retailers into partners for the brand’s anti-counterfeit operations. Previously there was no way to reward good behaviour.
8. The consumers were encouraged to scan the product packaging, by providing a content reward – those who scanned the product bottles were led to videos. This gamified the system to encourage more consumers to participate.
DeploymentMassive scale, sharp focus, easy deployment
Massive scale – Ennoventure’s technology was enabled on millions of product packages on the market. The products that were fake would not be able to pass the detection test. The detection test could be done in seconds by any consumer with a smartphone, by simply taking a scan of the product in the retail store, or at any time after the purchase.
Easy deployment – It was possible to deploy Ennoventure’s solution quickly over a fast-moving and highly-scaled production program, because it did not require any process change. There was no change to the factory production process and it did not disrupt any
supply chain or logistics systems.
Sharp focus – The visualization dashboard, pattern recognition analysis and heatmaps ensured that the millions of data points were easily and instantly converted into insights that can be acted on. This reduced the lead time from data collection to insights from days to just a few seconds.
Reporting and analyticsReal-time, secure and cloud based
The reporting and analytics systems are proprietary, cloud based solutions that Ennoventure has developed specifically for anti-counterfeit operations. This involved a detailed and deep understanding of the product landscape and specific pain points and weaknesses in the current anti-counterfeit systems. Ennoventure had done the legwork to create a system that did not require any disruption to existing product manufacturing, packaging or logistics operations, while addressing the key challenges.
The idea was to create a seamless end to end, independent, secure and incorruptible system that is powered by randomized consumer trails on scale. This prevented any weak points from disrupting the system, including lack of data on product type, location, penetration and density.
Insight
Counterfeiters caught in the act
The real-time analytics dashboard provided by Ennoventure, revealed a region where there was a rapid and dense increase in detection of fake products.
This threw up a flag – Why was there an increase in fake product penetration in such a rapid manner in a concentrated geographic region?
The company sprung into action based on this insight
a. The data points were powerful to convince regulatory authorities. Often the regulatory authorities cannot act unless a credible reason was established. They have to prioritize their on-field actions based on their stretched resources. The company was able to provide undeniable data based evidence that substantiated the presence and rapid spread of fake
products in a specific region.
A truck load of fake products was seized based on the on-ground action taken by the Police. This provided valuable evidence in the ongoing investigations around counterfeits, and was able to prevent a large quantum of fake products from reaching the retail stores and harming consumers. This also protected the brand reputation from being sullied due to poor effectiveness of fake products which the consumers might misunderstand as being genuine.
The credible data, real time visualization and fast action helped capture counterfeiters in the act.
The time and scale advantage
Ennoventure exponentially increases the brands capability to fight counterfeiters
1. Save time by fast deployment without process change
2. Get consumers and retailers as de factor brand representatives by scanning products at scale
3. Instant real-time data updates on visual dashboards helps fast decision making
4. Credible data with location information helps authorities to act fast and prioritize
Ennoventure’s award-winning technology solution
Use Ennoventure’s technology to drive large-scale, high-velocity, data-driven anti-counterfeit and consumer awareness programs without any process change in the production or distribution.
1. High-velocity and scaled anti-counterfeit solutions
2. Invisible verification signature code – no change to artwork
3. No process change in the factory. Deploy the program very fast.
4. Real-time tracking dashboard – act on real-time data
5. Mobile app and webpage-based verification scans – empower stakeholders and consumers