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Steroids and faking other brands I got mildly irate mail from a manufacturer claim that his product is in fact real and not fake. In corresponding with him I realized once again why faking somebody else's brand is not a good idea. I also think it is important for consumers to know. Here is a transcript of my response, I have exclude the brand name because thats not the point, the principal behind it is. Thank for your mail; “Of course it's fake. You are not “Brand X”. “Brand X” is made my “Brand X”, your product is not, yet you use the same name, why? Because you are riding on another brand name. The fact that you do this means you don't have a problem with the ethics of stealing another brand name. You even copied the font and the color. How is that different from making t-shirs and sowing in Armani labels. You are selling the product based on somebody else's brand name. Make your own brand and stop riding on other brands backs and I'll be happy to set the record straight. There are tons of other manufacturers that have their own brand names so I don't see why you should have the need to use “Brand X” brand name for your own products. This industry relies on peoples integrity, your brand should portray it. By doing what you doing, you immediately raise concerns about whether you are ethical or not. Call it “My Brand” or something and you won't pick up problems with your brand being labeled fake. If it is a good product people will buy it and support you. Good products support themselves. If you have to use another brands name to sell your product then there is only one conclusion, your product is not good enough to sell itself. I have been in this game for 20 years and have seen just about everything, and I am giving you this advice with the best intensions, I have seen many a good product die because of this issue. Every single person that has used “Brand X” and comes across your brand is going to label it fake, and if your product is good then it would be a pity because we need good products from good companies. How would you react if I took your brand name, and put it on my product and sold it? Think about it, you are putting in a lot of hard work, so you might as well put it in for your own brand, instead of spending all your time explaining that your product is not fake. Let me know what you think.” This to me ties up with the whole bad mouthing issue. If the only way for you to sell your product, is to badmouth the competition then you really don’t have a good product, otherwise you would be selling it on it’s strong points. A good product will sell itself. Because of the nature of the steroid market, consumers have only the integrity of the manufacturer/supplier to rely on. My take on it is as follows: if somebody badmouths the competition, the you need to wonder about his product. If somebody fakes another brand then you need to wonder about his product, if somebody tell you all the good point of his product then he has at least given some information to compare with other brands, and it shows where his interest lies, in making his brand good, instead of simply spending time riding on the competitions brand or bad mouthing the competition. |