The Brand Protection Company Checklist

 As we pointed out in Module 4 (“Who’s Responsible for Brand Protection?”), safeguarding and growing your company’s brand should be a responsibility shared by every employee, department, consultant, partner, vendor, wholesaler, distributor, and retailer of your company.

Every individual and business representing your company is a de facto ambassador for your brand, which means you need to make sure they all understand and take seriously the need to behave in ways that elevate your brand, rather than undermine it.

But what does that mean in practice? What are the actual responsibilities of, say, your in-house sales department, or your wholesale partners, in helping to protect your brand?

The specific tasks involved will vary by company, of course, because no two businesses are identical. But there are many brand protection best practices common to most companies. So in this module we’ll offer a checklist to give your company a starting point in creating and assigning the most important brand protection roles and responsibilities.

Before we jump in to those checklists, though, here’s a summary of how some of an organization’s primary departments can contribute to protecting its brand.

 

How Key Departments Contribute to Brand Protection

1. THE EXECUTIVE TEAM

A company’s senior leadership will ideally set a vision for the organization that places protecting and growing the company’s brand as a top priority. The executive staff should, for example, develop a clear, compelling, and straightforward brand message, and then communicate this message to everyone in the organization. 

This brand message should represent the company’s promise to customers and the public. Maybe it’s about delivering outstanding quality, or a memorable experience, or the feeling of exclusivity a customer gets when they buy the company’s product.

Whatever the specific message is, the executive team should regularly communicate to everyone in the company that, in everything they do, their actions should support and reinforce that brand message.     

 

2. SALES

The in-house sales department often acts as the catalyst at the company for adopting a MAP or MRP program, because they’re having difficulty selling product to their distributors, wholesalers, or retail partners—who can no longer compete with rogue sellers.

The sales team can also contribute to brand protection and growth by developing policies and programs (such as an Authorized Dealer Program) that reduce the incidents of inventory falling into the hands of unauthorized sellers in the first place.

 

3. MARKETING

The marketing department can help both in crafting the messaging, to position the company’s MAP-covered products as “premium,” and in managing some of the MAP enforcement levers, such as adding repeat violators to the Do Not Sell list and withholding promotional dollars from those resale partners. 

Marketing might also take the lead in monitoring the Internet for reviews of the company’s products and responding quickly and strategically to negative comments or ratings. This can help both to protect against brand damage and to alert the company to problems in its supply chain. Sometimes a series of bad customer reviews are the result of a rogue retailer’s poor customer experience, for example, or even an underperforming shipping partner.  

 

4. LEGAL

The in-house legal team (or outside counsel) will help draft the MAP or MRP policy and, ideally, will also advise the company on how to enforce it such that the company avoids any legal pitfalls.

 

5. ECOMMERCE

If the company has its own eCommerce sales team, that department will have to police itself against violating its own MAP or MRP policy. These reseller policies, and the company’s broader brand protection strategy, will succeed only to the extent that everyone must follow them—including the manufacturer itself.

 

6. CUSTOMER SUPPORT

The customer support team will need to be in the loop on which retailers have violated the company’s pricing policy and how to communicate with these retail partners when they call.

 

A High-Level Brand Protection Company Checklist 

 Now let’s review a checklist of some of the most important actions and best practices a company can take to protect its brand.  

For each of these tasks below, we’ve also suggested a person or team to take the lead. Your company might be better served delegating these responsibilities to different owners, however. 

 

	Responsibility		Owner
✓	Ensure the company has a clear brand message and that everyone across the organization knows it.		Executive Team
✓	Establish brand protection as a company priority for all employees, consultants, and partner businesses.		Executive Team
✓	Translate the company’s brand protection initiative into specific practices as they relate to each employee’s role.		Department Heads
✓	Identify the threats to the company’s brand (e.g., unauthorized sellers, distribution leaks, online price erosion, etc.).		Executive Team Sales
✓	Select (or hire) a Brand Protection Champion to strategically drive the initiative.		Executive Team
✓	Research reseller pricing policies (e.g., MAP, MRP), and identify the appropriate policy for the company.		Executive Team Sales Legal Brand Protection Champion
✓	Secure companywide buy-in to implement a reseller policy (given that it might change the business model).		Entire Company
✓	Draft your reseller pricing policy.		Legal
✓	Develop an enforcement strategy to deal with violators (e.g., an escalating series of warning notices, different warnings for authorized and unauthorized sellers, etc.)		Legal Brand Protection Champion (If applicable, your Brand Protection Software)
✓	Evaluate brand protection software apps (for monitoring pricing violations, rogue sellers, negative customer reviews, etc.)		Brand Protection Champion
✓	Research marketplaces’ own brand protection programs (e.g., Amazon Brand Registry, Project Zero), and determine whether or not to sign up.		Brand Protection Champion
✓	Develop an Authorized Dealer Program to limit which retailers may sell your inventory. (This will require developing a screening process to vet retailers who apply.)		Sales Legal
✓	Develop a Do Not Sell list, and create a process for adding resellers to this list and making sure all relevant parties have access to an up-to-date version of the list.		Sales Legal Brand Protection Champion
✓	Update your wholesaler and/or distributor agreements to reflect your new mandate that these companies sell only to your authorized dealers.		Sales Legal Brand Protection Champion
✓	Develop an Authorized Dealer Badging program, which enables you to provide dealers with clickable trust icons for their sites that link to your verification the retailer is an authorized seller of your brand.		Brand Protection Champion  (If applicable, your Brand Protection Software)
✓	Assign a Policy Administrator to handle all reseller communications about your MAP or MRP. (For both legal and business reasons, only this administrator should communicate with resellers about your pricing policy.)		Sales Brand Protection Champion
✓	Train all employees about how to handle common issues regarding enforcement of your reseller policy.		Department Heads
✓	Monitor your products’ presence at all times across the Internet for pricing violations, unauthorized sellers, copyright or trademark infringement, and other brand threats.		Brand Protection Champion  (If applicable, your Brand Protection Software)
✓	Develop a strategy for monitoring the Internet for customer reviews, comments, and star ratings—and for responding to negative reviews.		Marketing Brand Protection Champion (If applicable, your Brand Protection Software)
✓	Establish a process for fielding and directing all communications about your reseller pricing policy. (Remember, only your designated Policy Administrator should discuss your pricing policy with resellers.)		Brand Protection Expert Policy Administrator