This is the article No. 1461 of the New Consumer Think Tank
Author: Jing Xun
Source: New Consumer Think Tank
New Consumption Guide
Many well-known brands will encounter the same problem, when searching for their own products on the e-commerce platform, they will always encounter some similar competitors who "rub fame", or even "high imitation" copycats that rub the edge ball.
For example, the internationally renowned mother and baby brand ChildLife, encountered a true and false mystery, called "Childhood Time" Tmall flagship store, a German brand related products are called the upgraded version of the ChildLife brand, the real ChildLife flagship store is another person.
Everyone wants their children to have a healthy future, but there are always many products that are difficult to distinguish between true and false, which hinder the normal consumption rights of mothers.
ChildLife True or False:
Hong Kong's high court ban on inland channels said escalated
Families who have purchased nutritional supplements for their children are absolutely new to the "ChildLife (Chinese formerly known as Childhood Time)" mother and baby brand. In addition to channels such as daigou and haitao, the first channel for many families to contact ChildLife is likely to be some of the "childhood overseas flagship stores" on major cross-border e-commerce platforms.
However, recently, the stores of relevant cross-border platforms have been constantly mixed with non-ChildLife brand products. Among them, there is a German brand of "calcium, magnesium and zinc" product appearance packaging is very similar to ChildLife, in the relevant detail pages of the goods sold, there are also ambiguous descriptions such as "product upgrade", "new upgrade of suppliers" and "upgrade of production standards".
However, a closer look reveals that this product does not have the ChildLife brand logo in English, only its red heart-shaped pattern, which may mislead consumers into believing that this German brand product is an upgrade/new product line of their original sales of ChildLife.
Carefully look at the links of calcium, magnesium and zinc products sold in Tmall International's "Childhood Overseas Flagship Store", formerly known as the Calcium, Magnesium and Zinc products of the ChildLife brand (before turning the buyer's evaluation to August, you will find that they are all ChildLife's purchase evaluations), and the total sales of ChildLife products, historical evaluations, etc. The behavior will be judged as a serious violation of the Taobao rules as "indiscriminate messages (commonly known as changing babies)".
Is it a product upgrade, or a stealing beam for a column? An order of the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region may be used as supporting evidence.
On 20 October 2021, the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region issued an injunction order expressly prohibiting the infringement of nature's STORY COMPANY LIMITED and PELICAN HILLS COMPANY LIMITED, the main operating companies of the relevant cross-border platforms, the removal of overseas flagship stores from major cross-border e-commerce platforms, and the sale of Chinese and English trademarks involving ChildLife. And very recognizable products of the Red Heart Graphic Trademark.
Under the injunction, the use of "Childhood Time" and "ChildLife" has become more explicit.
The reason for this is because of the commercial benefits of brand reputation. The proposition of healthy growth of infants and young children is the missing part of the country 20 years ago, because of the lack of nutrients caused by unbalanced diet, it is necessary to supplement dietary nutrition in daily recipes to cope with the health challenges caused by environmental changes.
In such a background, the endorsement effect of internationally renowned brands is obviously more convincing, which also makes ChildLife's iconic "four-color frame, one red heart" pattern accompany the children of many families to grow up, and has become the first choice recommended by many parents and mother and baby bloggers.
Looking at the corporate profile, the real ChildLife brand has a history of more than 20 years, with sales in 27 countries and regions around the world, and many awards. Contact with Chinese consumers began in early 2000, and after gaining voice in the domestic market in 2004 with the help of the Asia Expo, the brand officially entered the Chinese market in 2005 and became the first choice for many families to supplement children's nutrition.
Flipping through the brand sales data, it has won the top 1 sales of infant nutrition categories on Tmall Double Eleven for many consecutive years, which shows that consumers recognize it.
Don't let your child's childhood be stolen
The relationship between the above childhood time and the actual ChildLife brand is actually quite complicated.
After officially appointing Chinese distributors to sell products in China in 2005, ChildLife also began to lay out domestic e-commerce channels. To this end, in 2010, Nanjing Childhood Time Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Nanjing Company) was first authorized as a secondary distributor In 2012, Nanjing Company was authorized as the exclusive distributor in the Chinese market.
Even more paradoxically, the Nanjing company registered the Chinese trademark of "Childhood Time" and the representative red heart graphic logo in China, all of which were not informed to the ChildLife brand. And during the period of authorized distributors, Nanjing Company openly claimed that the original foreign ChildLife products currently circulating on the market were authorized by it, and the objective and de facto primary and secondary reversals were particularly remarkable.
After being discovered by the ChildLife brand side, in March 2021, the Nanjing company terminated its authorization as a general distributor in China on the grounds that it seriously violated the distribution agreement and the principle of good faith to preemptively register the brand-related commercial logo. It should be noted that after the termination of the authorization, the Nanjing company still carried out sales activities with the trademarks of "childhood time" and "red heart pattern" in its own hands, and announced that the product was upgraded, and the above-mentioned German brand products gradually replaced the original ChildLife products, which was once misleading.
According to the analysis of legal sources, even if the Nanjing company registers the trademark rights of the Chinese name and the red heart graphic logo, the brand party can also find its trademark from judicial and administrative channels. In particular, after the termination of the authorization, the Nanjing Company still uses goods with similar designs, which is very likely to violate the relevant provisions of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.
The injunction of the Hong Kong High Court is the first step for the brand to protect its own interests by judicial means, and it is also the best embodiment of the legal support for enterprises to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests, and this prohibition also helps the brand to occupy a certain advantage in the inland judicial channel.
At present, the brand has complained and removed the shelves of ChildLife series products without authorized channels through rights protection means. However, there are still high-quality imitation products on the market, such as some stores on cross-border platforms that sell a German brand with the same red heart logo as the packaging, and use product upgrades and supply chain revisions to promote copywriting.
True and false are difficult to distinguish, but it is not impossible to distinguish. It is reported that after the termination of the licensing agreement with the Nanjing company, the ChildLife brand side has re-authorized Well Sky as the exclusive distributor in China to coordinate the market with it. The genuine licensed ChildLife products can be purchased in the official flagship store of ChildLife on Tmall International, JD International Cross-border Platform, Koala Haishou, Douyin, Vipshop, Kid King and other channels, and the official channels of Xiaohongshu, Leyou, Lilac, Sam and other platforms are also about to be launched.
At the product level, it is also possible to distinguish whether it is genuine on the packaging. Tmall ChildLife overseas flagship store customer service said that ChildLife products will appear on the English name ChildLife and the red heart logo at the same time, both of which are indispensable. Products that do not have the huge prominent ChildLife English trademark on the front of the product are counterfeit products.
Money is a small thing, don't let your child's childhood time be stolen for a pillar.
Consumer Track Midfield Answers:
Long-term brand power Short-term product force
The real can't be fake, the fake can't be true.
There are many cases of brand rights protection in the consumer industry, and the most classic brand case in China in recent years is naturally the trademark dispute between China Jordan and Jordan in the United States.
Qiaodan Sports Co., Ltd., located in Fujian, has registered a number of trademarks since 2000 that have registered "Qiaodan", "QIAODAN", "Qiaodan", "Qiaodan", "Qiaodan King" and the names of the two sons of NBA star Michael Jordan, "Jeffrey Jordan" and "Marcus Jordan", which are written in Both Chinese and English. Since then, it has opened the road of star Jordan himself for eight years to defend his rights, until 2020, when it was ruled by the Supreme People's Court, and the domestic Qiaodan Sports lost the lawsuit, and 4 trademarks involving Chinese "Qiaodan" were revoked.
After this battle, let the majority of consumers truly realize that there are two kinds of star Qiaodan Sports brand and Fujian Qiaodan Sports "True and False Monkey King". Consumers will no longer blindly follow the false brand and celebrity benefits, but will only choose the genuine products.
At present, the interaction of all things on the Internet is no longer the era of information collection difficulties more than ten or twenty years ago, and pure high imitation cottage brands such as "Wahaha", "Kang Shuaifu" and "Yue Li Yue" have almost disappeared, and the fake foreign brands such as "Adi Wang" in the past have also been abandoned by consumers.
China's consumer market environment has changed dramatically. The living environment of the cottage brand has begun to die, and the new consumer brand that has risen, as a dynamic fresh blood, has stimulated and led the demand for consumption upgrading of the younger generation, and its catfish effect has also promoted the crisis awareness of traditional brands, and the market has set off a wave of product innovation, marketing innovation and channel innovation.
In such an environment, we may hear a lot of new concepts, nouns, and models, but they have not changed the essence of the consumer goods industry and the service industry - consumers make choices through brand recognition.
After throwing away the fancy packaging of new and old brands, there are only two essential contents that can affect consumers, the first is the consumer trust relationship, the consumption decision-making path and cost reduction; the second is that consumers are willing to pay a premium for the brand or product.
ChildLife has spent more than 20 years, with the quality of the product to shape the corporate reputation and brand image, is the first "teacher" of many newborn families to learn to raise. Research ChildLife's existing product line, which basically covers the complete nutritional supplement program for infants and children, provides a complete solution for families, and on this basis develops a new product line to complement the entire program with healthy and delicious snack products.
At a time when the consumer track has entered the midfield, new consumer brands are rising, traditional brands are renewed, and international brands are localized... Each company is playing its own strength, perhaps the enterprise brands in the access to new channels, the basis of the new model, it is time to look back at the traditional brands have followed the "classical model", the classical enterprise brand thinking mode is that I do a good job of products - I win the reputation - I accumulate the brand, so slow work out of the fine work, do time friends.
Long-term brand power, short-term product strength, medium-line service force. Such a brand, combined with the fashionable traffic marketing play, will naturally win the market. Among them, brands with many years of development history naturally carry advantages, which is the accumulation of time and the assets of the enterprise.
Taking ChildLife as an example, as a well-known mother and baby brand in the information age with its own traffic, consumers who have purchased will speak according to their personal experience, become the products and services that potential consumers can see, hear and feel, form brand perception, and finally use products and brand power to promote people to vote with their feet.
True and false "ChildLife" incident is different from the general consumer goods category, as a food supplement type of maternal and infant products, no parent will not care about the child, naturally will first investigate the clear.
The truth will only become clearer and clearer. Perhaps some consumers will choose high imitation brands because of a moment of carelessness, but consumers buy brand credibility and products, after the market, time, consumer triple certification of genuine brands, products are also guaranteed, this is what they need, not a false "product upgrade" and bells and whistles but errors in the "new brand".
Fake brands are doomed not to be long-term.
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