• Ad Age, Tuesday, December 22, 2009 10:51 AM

It is the CMO's responsibility to curb black market consumption, write Peggy Chaudhry and Stephen Stumpf, who both teach at the Villanova School of Business. But if you want to stop counterfeiters from usurping the goodwill of your brand name (and the good fortune of your bottom line), you first have to understand why consumers buy ersatz products in the first place.

After having conducted a web survey of 2,000 consumers in five countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and the United States -- the authors offer a five-point program to battle counterfeiters. The first step is to develop better measures of understanding consumer involvement. The second is to identify successful "de-marketing" techniques. Pfizer, for example, launched a "regurgitated rat" campaign to build awareness on the potential harm of fake drugs purchased over the Internet.

The last point is to use electronic warranty cards to ensure authenticity, which "will empower consumers to buy legitimate products and encourage them to steer clear from the dangers of buying from underground merchants."

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