Brand Imitation

By similar cues to believe that two brands are interchangeable To copy or be like Govt of India Glossary imitation means the action or product of imitating and to imitate means to follow as a pattern, model or sample, to produce likeness of.

Kinds

Counterfeits or product pirates Knock offs or clones Design copy or trade dress Creative adaptations/ adopter

Counterfeits or product pirates

Are copies that carry the same brand name or trade marks as original. Counterfeits are strictly illegal

Knock offs or clones

Often legal products in their own right. The absence or expiration of patents, copyrights and trademarks make many of them legal. Same basic product with lower price and without any prestigious brand. Assembled PC

Design copy or trade dress

Trade on the style, design or fashion of a competitors product May also be based on unique and innovative technologies Lexus ,

Creative adaptations/ adopter

They take the existing product and either improve upon them or adopt it to a new arena of competition Innovative imitations

Factors affecting

Consumer factors Company factors The culture

Consumer factors

Desirability of top western brands Little knowledge of authentic brands Unavailability of top brands

Company factors

Economic ( profit) Lack of infrastructural support

The culture

Moral aspect ( Asian vs. european)

Imitation vs. later market entry

Is imitation late market entry? Innovation Pioneering

Innovator Pioneer Innovator is the first to market with an innovative product

Imitator Beats the innovator with imitative product while the innovator lingers in test marketing The imitator enters the market after the innovator with a copy of innovator product

Later entrant

One innovator is beaten to the market by another innovator, each has developed its new product independently

Classifying later entrants

Based on time elapsed between the pioneer and the subsequent entrants Early followers Late followers

First mover advantages

Image and reputation Brand loyalty Opportunity to pick market position Technological leadership An opportunity to set product standards Access to distribution Experience effects Patents as barrier to entry Switching cost as barrier to entry

Free rider effects

Which accrue to imitators and later entrants Which is more realistic?

Benefits of free rider

Avoiding products that have no potential Survivor bias (slot machine effect) Estimates of new product failure rates Lower R&D expenditures Relative cost of innovation versus copying Opportunity to gain share with heavy promotion Lower costs of educating customers Technology leap frog Sticking the pioneer with an obsolete standard Opportunity to benefit from market changes Opportunity to use shared experience

Imitation strategies

Offer lower prices than pioneers Sell a superior product or imitate and improve Use market power to overwhelm the weaker pioneer

Offer lower prices than pioneers

Selling exact duplicate at reduced price Selling trimmed down version at much lower price Low cost equals low price Timing entry to match growth

Sell a superior product or imitate and improve

Second but better Technological leap frog Is fast second entry important here? Importance of staying technologically current

Use market power to overwhelm the weaker pioneer

Brand power Advertising and distributions are key Bigness Dish TV