Your brand is one of your most valuable assets. But when employees across multiple locations and departments order promotional products on their own, from random vendors with no oversight, your brand is at risk. This is how brand abuse begins.
What is Brand Abuse?
Brand abuse refers to the unauthorized use of your brand’s assets, like your logo, colors, and messaging, on unapproved or low-quality merchandise. This can happen when vendors modify your logo, use outdated branding, or print it on cheap materials that don’t reflect your company’s standards.
A classic example of brand abuse is when an employee orders shirts for an event, and the vendor distorts your logo or prints it in the wrong color. Not only does this undermine your image, but it also confuses your audience.
Related issues like brand name logo abuse (unauthorized or improper use of your logo) and brand spoofing (when malicious actors imitate your brand online to deceive customers) can destroy customer trust, lead to lost revenue, and hurt your reputation.
The Hidden Cost of Promo Abuse
Promo abuse happens when well-intentioned team members use unofficial products, outdated artwork, or incorrect color schemes on branded merchandise. Often, it’s not out of malice, it’s just a lack of centralized control.
Your organization has likely invested substantial amounts—possibly tens of thousands, if not millions of dollars—building and establishing its brand. But without a system to manage how your promotional items are selected and produced, you’re leaving that investment vulnerable to brand misuse.
How to Control Merch Quality Without Slowing Down the Process
To combat brand abuse, many organizations resort to requiring all orders to be pre-approved by a designated brand protector. However, depending on the volume of orders and the company’s size, this can quickly become a full-time job. This approval process slows down ordering and is not an efficient use of your employees’ time.
There’s a better way: an online company store.
By implementing an online company store, organizations can maintain brand integrity, enhance operational efficiency, and ensure that all merchandise aligns with the established brand standards. This not only preserves the brand’s value but also reinforces a unified corporate identity across all locations and departments.
How an Online Company Store Helps
Centralized Control and Consistency
- Pre-approved Items: An Online Company Store allows for a curated selection of pre-approved products, ensuring that all items meet brand standards before they are made available to employees. This prevents unauthorized use of logos and designs on unapproved merchandise.
- Vendor Management: By only using vendors vetted by Coggins, you ensure consistent quality and adherence to brand guidelines across all products. This eliminates the risks associated with dealing with multiple product sources, each with varying levels of quality control.
Quality Assurance
- Quality Control: Every item, from apparel to office supplies, was previously vetted to meet your company’s brand standards before it reaches the employees.
- Consistent Branding: All items in the online store adhere to the company’s branding guidelines, ensuring that logos, colors, and designs are used correctly and uniformly across all products.
Efficient and Streamlined Processes
- Ease of Access: Employees can easily access the store and order approved items without needing to seek individual approvals for each purchase. This reduces the time and effort spent on the ordering process and minimizes the potential for ordering incorrect or unapproved items.
- Automated Systems: The online store’s automated systems handle e-commerce processes, payment processing, and reporting, simplifying the management of branded merchandise and reducing administrative burdens.
Data and Reporting
- Real-time Reporting: The store provides real-time data and reporting features that give visibility into inventory levels, order history, and purchasing trends. This helps in tracking brand usage and identifying any discrepancies quickly.
- Usage Monitoring: Administrators can monitor who is ordering what, ensuring that branded merchandise is being used appropriately and in line with company policies.
Simplified Approval Processes
- Controlled Access: Access to branded items can be restricted based on roles or departments, ensuring that only authorized personnel can order specific items. This control helps maintain brand integrity.
- Approval Workflows: For items that require special approval, the online store can incorporate approval workflows, ensuring that any exceptions are reviewed and approved by designated brand guardians.
Why Brand Abuse Goes Beyond Merchandise
While low-quality promo items and logo misuse are the most visible forms of brand abuse, your brand is also vulnerable in less obvious, digital ways. Just as unapproved t-shirts can weaken your image, online brand abuse can damage trust on a much larger scale.
One particularly dangerous form is brand spoofing.
Brand spoofing is when malicious actors imitate your brand online, often through fake websites, phishing emails, or fraudulent social media accounts, to deceive customers or employees.
Unlike promo abuse, which usually stems from internal missteps, spoofing is an external threat designed to exploit your reputation.
Even if spoofing isn’t tied directly to your physical merchandise, it highlights why maintaining consistent branding is so critical. When your logos, colors, and messages appear in controlled, professional ways (such as through a centralized online store) you establish trust and reduce the risk of confusion or exploitation.
Get Total Brand Protection
Coggins Promo makes it easy to set up and manage your own branded online store. You choose what items go in the catalog, and we handle the rest, from vendor compliance to order fulfillment.
By consolidating your branded merch into one platform, you’ll eliminate brand abuse, simplify the ordering process, and protect your company’s image.
