Roland Meylan, co-founder and corporate communications director of AlpVision SSA, explains why speedy, low-cost implementation of anti-counterfeit technology is key to success - and how to achieve it. An in-depth BPCouncil interview.

BPCouncil: Mr. Meylan, some observers have stated that the take-up of brand protection solutions is not developing at a speed that can outpace – or even keep pace – with the disturbing increase in the number of fraudulent products on the market. What do you think is the solution to this?

Roland Meylan: Based on my company’s experience, the key to providing a quick response to the accelerating growth in fraudulent products is to make readily available and at low cost the means to distinguish genuine products from fakes.

BPC: How can this be done?

RM: An effective approach would be to eliminate in the implementation process any requirement for specialized or proprietary equipment. Manufacturers must be able to easily integrate the anti-counterfeiting solutions in their standard packaging processes. At the same time, technology providers must make sure that authentication can be made using regular consumer electronic devices.

BPC: Could you expand on this? What does it mean in practice?

RM: In security printing, for example, solutions should be developed and delivered which do not require any special inks or taggant in order to achieve secure and invisible marking. The goal is to enable brand owners to introduce a brand protection program without any change in their packaging designs or in the production workflow, and also very importantly, without reduction of the packaging production speed. On the authentication side, the solution must be designed so it can be used on standard electronic equipment, such as cheap office scanners or regular camera phones that are readily available worldwide, thereby eliminating the need for a single supplier of dedicated scanners.

BPC: Are you saying that the brand protection solution’s ability to be fully managed by the brand owner – and its compatibility with an existing industrial production flow – are even more important than the nature of the solution?

RM: Definitely yes, and especially where large volumes of products are concerned. Based on our analysis, worldwide deployment of a new brand protection process that alters the production flow (requiring a specific equipment, for example) – or that depends on new suppliers of security devices – would be far too complicated, costly and therefore likely to be rejected, even if the technology appears to be very smart.

BPC: AlpVision’s recent white papers and press releases have mentioned that its solutions are open to end-consumers. How does this constitute an advantage for the manufacturer?

RM: Consumer habits are changing with the advent of, and rapid growth in, online shopping and the globalization of the supply chains. Even if the online shopping market is still marginal in size, it is clear that it is a convenient way to compare prices and to get products delivered to the doorstep. It is also well known that online commerce is currently a major source of counterfeiting. Therefore, it is easy to predict that one day soon, the consumers may want to be able to authenticate their online purchases, if possible before the purchase is even completed.

BPC: Do you recommend that brand manufacturers would provide such a service?

RM: That question is becoming more and more relevant each day and is already being tackled in industry conferences. I don’t think that I am qualified to give an opinion on this. What counts is what the brand manufacturers will do. If the demand for authenticating products by the end-consumers rises, AlpVision has the solution for branded product manufacturers to help them enable their end-consumers to distinguish genuine products from fakes.

BPC: Can you explain?

RM: As I previously stated, you can use an ordinary office scanner to detect fakes from genuine products marked with covert security features. Many consumers already have these scanners. Using any such digital image capture device – a home PC, a browser and an existing Internet connection – the end-consumer can easily perform an online secured authentication. This is as easy as an online banking operation.

BPC: Could you predict when such a service could be provided on a large scale?

RM: That is very difficult to say. The only remark I would make at this time is that such a service would need to establish a direct link between the brand manufacturer and the end-consumer, whatever the supply chain in between may be. According to marketing specialists, there is an ongoing competition among brands as to who can build the kind of customer relationship that results in brand awareness and loyalty. It is of course the counterfeiter’s knowledge of such brand loyalty and value that allows them to sell their fake products and generate fraudulent profits on the back of the brand’s huge advertising investments.

BPC: Some branded product manufacturers are of the opinion that combating counterfeiting is the role of the authorities and not that of the manufacturers.

RM: Fair enough. But at the end of the day it is the end-consumer who risks the most from buying a fake product. This is especially true in the case of food, beverages and medicines. So if an end-consumer is in doubt, it could be a good idea to provide him or her with a reliable and simple means to lift the doubt, and this could end up to be the most profitable course of action for the brand owner.

AlpVision is the Swiss-based provider of innovative and secure brand protection technologies among them the solution well known under the registered trade name Cryptoglyph.