The execution of a brand protection (BP) programme can entail significant costs for brand owners, and there is often a requirement to quantify the ‘value’ of a programme, which can also be a criterion for justifying corporate spend on its implementation.
There are a small number of areas (specifically, cases of domain recovery and e-commerce marketplace takedowns) in which there exist standard established methodologies for quantifying the return-on-investment (ROI) of a brand-protection initiative. The underlying ideas (with appropriate modifications and data proxies) can often be adapted to be applicable to actions of other types. In our latest Stobbs e-book, we provide a detailed breakdown of the formulation of these standard methodologies.
The e-book also discusses a number of key areas in which the basic ideas can be extended, to tailor the approaches to situations which are more complex and/or take account of additional factors, specifically:
- The use of variable substitution rates – i.e. the consideration of the proportion of customers who will buy a legitimate item once an infringing version is made unavailable (via a takedown process)
- Consideration of the long-term impact of a BP programme, with a particular focus on the overall change in the infringement landscape, in terms of the numbers of enforcements required
- Consideration of the impact on brand valuation of a successful programme of monitoring and enforcement
- Extension of ‘classic’ ROI calculation approaches to cover the impact of cybersecurity initiatives
Overall, the calculation of BP ROI involves a number of caveats and assumptions, and it is fair to say that no two cases are identical, with the specifics of the methodology used in any given case needing to be agreed in advance with the brand owner. However, the basic ideas used in the standard frameworks are fairly universally applicable, and so an appreciation of these concepts is extremely useful for any attempt to quantify ROI.
The full version of the e-book may be downloaded here.
