Online Audit & Enforcement

While rise of e-commerce and social media has created new opportunities for brands to connect with consumers, it has also introduced significant challenges. Unauthorized sellers, counterfeit products, brand misuse, and infringement can threaten both your revenue and the trust you have built with your customers. Whether on major platforms like Amazon, Walmart, and eBay or smaller, niche sites and social media apps, your brand is constantly exposed to online threats.

At Vaudra International, we understand that each brand faces unique challenges, and we strive to work through them with you in a way that fits your pace, workflows, and priorities. While it is helpful to understand the big picture from the start, we recognize that urgent matters may require immediate action. Whether we begin with the basics or jump right into addressing pressing concerns, we aim to gather the necessary pieces to create a foundational understanding that best supports your brand’s efforts.

We look beyond identifying where your brand is currently compromised, knowing that the key to a successful collaboration lies in understanding the essential elements that matter most to you and your stakeholders. This comprehensive approach enables us to develop a strategy that adapts and aligns with both your immediate and future goals.

Brand Onboarding Basics (BOB): Setting the Stage for Effective Enforcement

To effectively protect your brand, we start by compiling your Brand Onboarding Basics (BOB). These are the key components of your brand’s identity, digital presence, intellectual property assets, and current enforcement measures. By focusing on areas such as internal motivators, existing protections, and supply chain integrity, we use this information to craft strategies customized to your needs and the specific challenges your brand faces.

We understand that gathering these basics can be challenging, especially when data, details, and responsible personnel are spread across your organization. But you are not alone. We help prioritize the most critical areas based on your immediate concerns, allowing the onboarding process to evolve as our relationship grows. This flexible approach ensures a strong foundation, built piece by piece, to support a long-term enforcement strategy that remains effective and responsive to your needs.

In the following sections, we highlight some key areas and questions your brand should consider when setting priorities and pursuing online enforcement. As part of your BOB, these are building blocks to develop a robust brand protection strategy, ensuring all efforts are aligned with your vision for success.

  • Internal Motivators:

    Understanding the primary concerns and priorities of your brand’s leadership is crucial for aligning an enforcement strategy with your overall business goals. Who is driving the brand protection initiative, and what does success look like for them? By defining what “winning” means to you and your stakeholders, we can tailor our efforts to meet those expectations.

  • Current and Ongoing Efforts:

    Before implementing new strategies, it is important to assess what tools are already in place. How does your brand currently monitor suspect activity and enforce related IP rights? Do you already have accounts established within Amazon’s Brand Registry, Walmart’s Brand Portal, eBay’s VeRO program, etc…? Understanding who is responsible for monitoring and what actions are currently being taken helps identify workflows that may need clarity and gaps that we may help fill.

    We aim to complement, not duplicate, existing efforts. Your relationships with marketing, channel management, and brand protection partners are valuable. These partners may have insights or data that can enhance our efforts, and our services can support theirs in return.

  • Intellectual Property (IP) Assets:

    A complete inventory of your registered and pending IP is essential. This includes trademarks, copyrights, and patents that serve as legal tools to enforce your rights. Knowing the status of these IP assets, including those owned by related entities or affiliates, allows us to craft an enforcement strategy that is both practical and effective.

  • Brand’s Digital Footprint:

    Your brand’s digital footprint across various online platforms is the frontline of your brand protection efforts. Providing details on your brand’s websites, social media profiles, and authorized seller accounts on major platforms helps us recognize unauthorized activities swiftly. The more we understand where and how your brand operates online, the better we can strategize to protect it.

  • Manufacturing and Distribution:

    Understanding the flow of your products from manufacturing to the end consumer is vital for identifying vulnerabilities. Knowing who your authorized manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and retailers are helps in tracking and recognizing unauthorized sellers. We also assess the existence of any security features that can be used to trace products back to their source, intended reseller or distribution channel, keeping these tools in mind as diversion or authenticity indicators.

  • 3P Marketplaces:

    If your brand sells on platforms like Amazon, it is important to know who is authorized to sell your products and how those accounts are managed. Information such as Seller Central accounts, authorized ASINs, and any gated ASINs that restrict unauthorized sellers clarifies how your brand is represented on third-party marketplaces.

  • Key Markets and Customers:

    Knowing your main customers, where they are located, and how they interact with your brand is fundamental to understanding where your brand has vulnerabilities and opportunities related to online threats. How are customer complaints handled and who monitors the channels where customers are talking about suspected counterfeit products? This information starts internal dialog on which markets to prioritize enforcement actions as well as possibilities to cultivate leads to identify suspected bad actors.

  • Products and Pricing:

    Which key products or lines are most important to your brand—whether due to high sales volume, uniqueness, or profitability? Understanding retail and wholesale pricing, as well as any distinctive product traits or packaging, helps in developing strategies to identify, prioritize and better protect these assets.

  • Counterfeiting or Unauthorized Reseller Activities to Date:

    Documentation of past incidents of counterfeiting, suspicious activity or unauthorized sales provides valuable insights into existing threats. By understanding what products have been targeted, how counterfeits and concerns were discovered, and what measures have been effective (or ineffective) in the past, we can use these learnings to inform future efforts.

Moving Forward

Your Brand Onboarding Basics (BOB) provides a deep understanding of your brand’s identity, challenges, and priorities. This foundational knowledge allows us to address immediate concerns while also considering future threats and generating ideas to better support you in the ever-evolving digital marketplace. If additional information or clarification is needed, we revisit those points as necessary, ensuring our approach remains aligned with your goals and next steps.

Online Audit to Action:

  • Comprehensive Audit & IP Review:

    Guided by your BOB, we conduct a detailed audit, assessing your brand’s online presence and concerns based on available IP assets. This helps us identify enforceable issues and prioritize threats, laying the groundwork for a targeted strategy, in the long term as well as those shorter-term easy wins to clean up the marketplace(s).

  • Customized Enforcement Strategy:

    Using insights from the audit and IP review, we craft a tailored enforcement strategy. This may include evidential buys to verify authenticity, identifying potential regulatory or platform policy violations, and recommending actions such as filing NOCI complaints, sending cease-and-desist letters, or segmenting high-value targets for escalated action as appropriate.

  • Execution & Ongoing Enforcement:

    We execute the strategy with flexibility, providing regular updates that can be adjusted in format and frequency as priorities change. Our ongoing efforts ensure your brand remains protected, continually evolving as we gather intelligence and build on successful actions against key bad actors. Throughout this process, we establish workflows that align with your brand’s long-term objectives, internal resources, and enforcement needs.

Safeguarding Your Brand's Future

With your BOB, online audit, and tailored enforcement strategy, we ensure your brand is equipped with a comprehensive, adaptable plan to tackle the challenges of the digital marketplace. By aligning our efforts with your objectives and refining our approach as needed, we help your brand remain protected, resilient, and ready for long-term success.

Let us be your trusted partner in safeguarding what you have built, so you can focus on innovating what comes next.
Why Us
intellectual property, IP, investigations

Offering Intellectual Property (IP) investigations & brand protection solutions globally since 2003.

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