The importance of brand protection, could it have saved Aston Martin time, money and most importantly, its reputation?

Product Piracy is becoming a major problem due to its high profitability. This is why Brand Protection is becoming more and more important for industries with high standard products, such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, tobacco, alcohol, and many more. It is not only important for the manufacturer to protect its products but also for consumers who trust the products they buy.

Brand trust is the intrinsic ‘believability’ that any entity evokes, and it is imperative that both the brand owner and consumer can have faith that the project is 100% as it is intended to be.

A recent article posted on the BBC news website about luxury car brand Aston Martin demonstrates the damage caused when a sub-supplier allegedly used counterfeit plastic in the production of their car’s accelerator pedals. There have been no reports of any accidents, however, if you’re climbing into a car with well over 500 horsepower, which you’ve paid upwards of £100,000.00 for – you don’t want to hear that they’ve cut corners on the accelerator pedal!

Aston Martin had to recall over 17,000 vehicles – a major embarrassment for a firm priding itself on quality engineering. The manufacture of the pedal has now been moved back into the UK.

At Hague we have many years’ experience in protecting brands from forgery. We use overt, covert and forensic techniques to protect the whole supply chain and use our track and trace software to ensure the genuine end product.