Defending
Your Brand Against Imitation: Consumer Behavior, Marketing Strategies, and
Legal Issues
Abstract (summary)
Defending Your Brand Against Imitation: Consumer Behavior,
Marketing Strategies, and Legal Issues by Judith Lynne Zaichkowsky is reviewed.
Defending Your Brand Against Imitation: Consumer Behavior,
Marketing Strategies, and Legal Issues By Judith Lynne Zaichkowsky (Westport,
CT: Quorum Books, 1995,184 pages, $49.95 )
An Overview
Quorum Books has just released a second printing of Judy
Zaichkowsky’s book on brand imitation. This book is interesting because it
integrates three streams of research: marketing strategy, legal issues, and
consumer behavior. Typically, these three areas of inquiry do not overlap to
any great degree, so it is useful to see how the author weaves these strands
together to create a coherent tapestry. The purpose of the book is to inform
readers about current case law (both in the United States and internationally)
that governs the practice of brand imitation.
By brand imitation, Zaichkowsky means leading consumers “by
similar cues to believe that two brands are interchangeable” (p. 1). A synonym
is “passing off,” when “people confuse one business or product with another”
(p. 3). The concept of “brand” is treated broadly so that it covers words,
marks, symbols, and trademarks. Overall, this is more a managerial marketing
book than a legal tome. Case law is described in brief detail to illustrate key
points about legal trends.
The audience for this book is employees or owners of
organizations whose trademark or brand has been infringed on. In addition,
marketing managers or academics may be interested to read about the synthesis
of the three topics alluded to in the subtitle of the book. Attorneys seeking a
brief introduction to consumer research might also find this a useful book.
In the preface, the author explains that she became interested
in brand imitation because of her legal consulting experiences (related to a
case involving the National Hockey League). There is an increasing trend for
marketing professors to serve as expert witnesses, giving legal testimony.
Thirty years ago, such experts were more likely to be drawn from the ranks of
our colleagues in economics. Interestingly, this is one sign that academic
marketing is maturing and gaining acceptance by societal institutions. There is
a growing realization that the marketing discipline (including its journals and
scholars) is the repository for a body of knowledge that can help solve
societal problems and disputes.
Judges as Seers
Zaichkowsky provides brief summaries of approximately 115 legal
cases. The judges who are quoted display an advanced knowledge of marketing and
consumer behavior. For example, in 1942, Justice Felix Frankfurter writes the
following remarkable legal opinion:
The protection of trademarks is the law’s recognition of the
psychological function of symbols. If it is true that we live by symbols, it is
no less true that we purchase goods by them. A trademark is a merchandising
short-cut which induces a purchaser to select what he wants, or what he has
been led to believe he wants. The owner of a mark exploits this human
propensity by making every effort to impregnate the atmosphere of the market
with the drawing power of a congenial symbol…. [T]he creation of a mark through
an established symbol implies that people float on a psychological current
engendered by the various advertising devices which give a trademark its
potency (p. 3).
This statement about human behavior and marketing practice is
quite advanced for the 1940s, and in many ways foreshadows Levy’s 1959 essay on
symbols that appeared in Harvard Business Review. From a 1990s marketing
perspective, Frankfurter’s view seems a bit Machiavellian, as it talks about
“exploiting” consumers and “inducing” them “to select what” they “believe” they
“want.” However, many social scientists still subscribe to this negative view
of marketing activities and its effects on consumers. Most marketing
professionals do not currently believe that it is so easy to manipulate
consumers. There is considerable evidence that American consumers often are
quite cynical and suspicious of the advertising messages they see and hear.
If one discounts Frankfurter’s Machiavellian perspective, his
account of symbolism seems quite modern. In it, he acknowledges the profound
psychological impact of symbols and recognizes that consumer behavior is simply
a subset of human behavior in general, governed by the same laws of human
nature.
In 1946, British jurist Judge Cattarch describes consumer
shopping behavior in a surprisingly advanced way for that time:
The ordinary person buying groceries and other wares off the
shelf does not look beyond the brand on the label in distinguishing the origin
of the wares he or she is contemplating buying. There is neither the time nor
the inclination, during the course of a shopping excursion, to stop and peruse
the fine print on the labels, much less appreciate the fine distinctions of
meaning that might be taken therefrom (p 13).
Again, the judge provides a modem view of lowinvolvementconsumer
behavior. He also recognizes one of the main advantages of branding (from a
consumer perspective). That is, a brand serves as a shortcut and a time-saver
for consumers. Consumer research in the 1980s and 1990s repeatedly demonstrates
that shoppers are not particularly aware of “the fine print on the labels” of
products they buy.
A Neglected Theme: Marketing Research as Legal Evidence
Throughout the text, Zaichkowsky describes the process of
marketing research as it produces information that becomes legal evidence and
influences legal decisions. Because the author discusses so many cases, it is
not always possible to go into great depth on each. As a result, the reader is
sometimes tantalized and thirsts for more detail. For example, in a case
involving the Sears Roebuck company, the court appeared to rule against Sears
because of faulty marketing research. Leading questions were thought to have elicited
biased responses from consumers. It would be interesting to know exactly what
kinds of questions were asked on the survey and the process by which the court
decided that this procedure was inappropriate and/or flawed. Such information
would be enlightening from both a marketing research and a public policy
perspective. In this way, the author could add a fourth theme to her book:
marketing research as legal evidence.
Summary
Overall, this is a well-written book that is both interesting
and informative. There is something here for both marketing academics and
marketing managers. More and more, it seems, the interesting work in the social
sciences is done at the boundary. This book is extraordinary because it
operates successfully at the boundary of three disciplines. The author creates
a tight synthesis that is both practical and thought provoking.
Sumber :
http://blog.ub.ac.id/gusty/2012/09/26/tugas-jurnal-perilaku-konsumen-2/
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar