Printwear & Promotion The Total Promotional Package
CEO and founder of SproutWorld, Michael Stausholm, explains how his company has saved a huge amount of money and time using an AI based tool to fight fake plantable pencils online.
Fakes and counterfeits are a real issue in the world of promotional products. Anything that involves a brand and reputation is at risk; be it from domain threats, IP infringements, impersonation or unauthorised sellers – to name just a few things.
It’s a huge industry: five years ago, the total value of counterfeit products being sold globally exceeded $1.8 trillion and it will have grown substantially since then.
According to research by MarkMonitor, almost half of brands are now losing sales to counterfeit goods (47%). The impact is not just on those immediate sales that are taken by a fake – it has a ripple effect, on future sales and on reputation. Damaged reputations then lose trust: The study revealed that when a customer had discovered they’d bought a fake online, 22% said their experience had spoiled their perception of the brand, 26% of them stopped buying the brand altogether, and 27% even warned their family and friends against the brand.
While some demographics are more likely to knowingly purchase counterfeit items, particularly in categories like clothing, accessories, and watches; a significant proportion of consumers have unintentionally bought counterfeit goods and that is when decreased brand loyalty starts to become an issue.
Cleaning up the market
We noticed the problem at SproutWorld a few years ago, but we’ve turned it around and actually joined forces with some of our imitators, to clean up the market and ensure only genuine products are distributed.
SproutWorld makes the world’s only patented plantable pencils. Once your pencil is used, you pop the stub end into a planter, water and then watch a tree, herb, flower or vegetable grow. Great as corporate and personal gifts, they are hugely popular thanks to the simple and effective way that they can be branded and used to demonstrate a company’s commitment to sustainability.
Sustainability is not just an ethical decision, it’s a sensible business one. Consumers want to make environmentally sound choices. A report from The Roundup last year revealed that 78% of consumers feel that sustainability is important, 62% of people say they ‘always or often’ seek products to purchase because they are sustainable, 55% of consumers are willing to pay more for eco-friendly brands and a whopping 84% of customers say that poor environmental practices will alienate them from a brand or company.
Our commitment to sustainability is central to our whole business, from using FSC-certified wood to maintaining our own forest in Poland. The entire ethos of SproutWorld is sustainability – creating something responsibly that then can be repurposed and turned into something else. We are dedicated to the circular economy.
The counterfeit threat
However, over the last few years, counterfeit attempts from regions like China, India, and Turkey have threatened us. Despite patents and trademarks, manual monitoring was only uncovering a fraction of infringements. Counterfeits were using unsustainable materials that posed ecological risks, introducing non-native seeds that could damage biodiversity. This is literally the opposite of what we want to do.
It was imperative that we removed these harmful products from the market, ensuring that our innovations remained eco-friendly and trusted by consumers, and that the environment was protected – the whole point of our company! We needed a scalable, efficient solution to combat counterfeiters while safeguarding our reputation and sustainability mission.
To tackle these challenges, we partnered with a company called Red Points, deploying AI-powered technology to detect and remove counterfeit listings across platforms such as Amazon, Facebook, and Etsy. By automating monitoring and enforcement, Red Points eliminated the need for time-consuming manual processes.
Beyond enforcement, Red Points delivered actionable insights that SproutWorld’s sales team leveraged to actively engage with unauthorised sellers. This unique approach turned infringements into opportunities, converting counterfeit distributors into official partners and bolstering SproutWorld’s market reach.
Over 7,000 infringements were removed across 690 domains, significantly reducing the market presence of counterfeit products. We also identified and reported 1,982 infringers globally, gaining invaluable visibility into reseller networks.
These efforts streamlined enforcement, enhanced operational efficiency, and supported SproutWorld’s broader sustainability goals.
An e-commerce world
We operate in a world of e-commerce and new stores and sellers are constantly springing up, offering cheaper goods and faster delivery times. Their business models rely on creating and delivering on-trend products, imitated from others brands then promoted at an unprecedented rate through social media.
Temu is a classic example. With over 130 million app downloads – more than Amazon and Shein – Temu has quickly risen the ranks in the world of fast fashion-style retail. Connecting consumers directly to manufacturers, mainly in China, Temu cuts costs on a huge scale and uses social media and data driven advertising to target a wide demographic with huge output – according to Greenmatch, Temu despatches approximately 1.6 million parcels a day, which translates to around 16,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions from air transportation alone, never mind the packaging waste and other environmental and ethical issues. It’s not just environment – the quality of the products is often queried. Without buying from recognised and audited companies, shoppers simply don’t know what they are buying.
Social media has provided a massive opportunity for counterfeiters. The potential reach is huge. 73% of consumers are now actively shopping on social media platforms, a survey by bazaarvoice recently revealed. According to Root Digital, TikTok has over one billion monthly active users. 55% of TikTok users have bought something from a brand after seeing their products on the app. 50% of TikTok users have made a purchase after watching a TikTok Live – 18% of marketers currently use TikTok for marketing purposes and this will no doubt rise.
According to recent studies, around 3.3% of global trade is estimated to be counterfeit goods, meaning roughly one in every $20 spent globally could be on a fake product.
It’s therefore vital that we safeguard against these fakes. Business reputations, customer trust, business growth sustainability rely on this.
The best way to do this is though AI protection and this should be an ongoing part of any product-led business model.
