Retail brands and the theft of identity

Abstract

The marketing of own brands is a feature of modern multiple retailing. Retailers can create brand image by advertising their own products or creating brand equity in their own stores and transferring such imagery to their physical products. The costs of branding to the retailer are approximately an order of magnitude lower than that to the manufacturers of brands sold via those same retailers. Despite their inherent advantage in managing brands, retailers have often chosen to ape the presentation of established brands. Affronted brand owners can sue under British law for “passing off”, but the protection offered appears limited to the idea of protecting the shopper from confusion, rather than the brand owner from unfair competition. Empirical evidence is presented as to how a “lookalike” brand can acquire the image of the established brand, leading to the challenge of a theft of identity. Whether changes to British law and the different legal situation in other countries takes account of this phenomenon is questioned.