Counterfeiting is taking a serious toll on business and brand credibility. Many brands have lost their brand value and years of nurtured recognition because of counterfeited products. Fake products, especially the food and health care items, are posing a significant threat to the safety of consumers.

Illicit trade is hurting sales, ROI, and even jobs. According to a study conducted by the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and report published in Financial Times, the value of fake and counterfeit products has risen by 80 percent in the last ten years.

By 2020, the value of counterfeit goods is bound to reach 1.82 trillion globally.

The products that you use could be duplicate and untrue to its brand. As a brand, if you don’t take preventive action today, you will fail to guarantee that what your consumer use is your product. That too, in the very near future there would be 20% chance that your consumers will be purchasing things you sell from some impostors, assuming its yours.

Good news is there are new digital technologies developed and available in the market which tackle this issue at its core, letting the end users digitally and real-time authenticate the product before purchasing it. NeuroTags dual-codes technology-based solution not only prevents fakes but also opens up a digital communication channel with end consumers, which brands utilize to engage users via loyalty and automated personalized marketing for a life long relationship. Additional great thing about digital technologies are that they continuously improve with time, are mass scalable, and are very economical.

Read on to learn more about anti-counterfeiting with NeuroTags.

How NeuroTags eliminates counterfeits by 100%

Authentication and originality is going to be the biggest challenge for brands in 2020

The outlook of counterfeiting and pirated goods

Counterfeiting is an illegal activity, yet fake products are found across all countries. Since they often look like the originals, it becomes difficult to differentiate them, regardless of their quality.

As per OECD, the most commonly faked items are shoes, medicines and medical supplies, car parts, watches, consumer electronics, healthcare & baby products, cosmetics, smartphones, and clothes.

The majority of the fake products are picked up from China, according to Customs officials. However, a meager percentage of counterfeit manufacturers are also found in Turkey, Pakistan, India, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Since fake goods do not go through required quality checks and are manufactured using substandard materials (many of them are toxic), these items can be health and safety hazards to consumers. For instance, ineffective drugs for a critical illness, adulterated food for babies, sub-standard ingredients in cosmetics, and poorly underwired electrical appliances put consumers in severe health and safety risks. In addition to health hazards, copyright and intellectual property breaches also affect one of the critical factors for success in a competitive market -innovation and unrelenting economic growth.

Intellectual property infringement generates profits for the counterfeiting mobs at the expense of government and brands.

Ironically, pirated and fake products trend covers only physical and tangible goods that breach design rights, patents, trademarks, and copyrights. If we take into account online piracy as well, the numbers will further increase.

Countries that hugely suffer from counterfeited and fake goods are United States (24% fake products), France (17%), Italy (15%), Switzerland (11%), and Germany (9%).

Emerging economies like China, Brazil, Singapore, and India are becoming a victim too. The largest outlet for counterfeited goods is the courier-shipped or post-sent small parcels. In fact, in the years 2014 -2016, 69% of small-sized parcels (below 1 kg) were found counterfeit at the customs seizures.

Another factor that is causing faking is the free trade zones rules that govern trade, according to OECD free trade zones analysis.

A smart and quick approach to counterfeiting

NeuroTags helps brands to tackle the counterfeiting with the help of NeuroTags AI-backed, dual-code technology-based solution.

NeuroTags tags each product with a unique, secure, cognitive, traceable identity mark, known as NeuroTags Codes.

These Codes are powered by AI technology that gives them the ability to detect clones instantly, where the slightest anomaly in the scanning process is marked ‘unauthentic.’

Each NeuroTags Code is continuously monitored by an AI-backed cloud, which enables the brand to track the complete product journey– right from the warehouse to retailer to the ultimate consumer.

The cloud-based tracking prevents unauthorized distribution, increases supply-chain visibility, and improves consumer engagement 5X times.

NeuroTags Anti-counterfeiting solution does not require any kind of app download. The native capabilities of smartphone cameras are used to scan the code. This improves consumer acceptance, adoption, and engagement with the NeuroTags Code.

Furthermore, with these Codes, brands can empower consumers by bestowing them with an important role in reporting fake products – consumers scan the product, find it unauthentic, click pictures along with specific details, and report it to the brand. Brands use it as evidence against corrupted retailers dealing with fake suppliers.

The benefits of NeuroTag Codes are unsurpassable, the crucial ones being affordability, integrated consumer-engagement solutions, geo-location-based red flagging, and consumer-centric.

NeuroTags Anti-counterfeiting solution is highly customizable as per the specific brand needs. We also provide onsite training, and other Neuro Tagging solutions, such as RFID and NFC codes.