According to MarkMonitor, a global leader in enterprise branding protection, “Brandjacking is the criminal act of hijacking strong brands for profit.”
In the not too distant past, Brandjacking was a word known only to an elite few marketing executives - today it’s one of the leading buzzwords in Big Pharma. “Of the 2,930 online pharmacies found by MarkMonitor, only four are certified by the United States to sell prescription drugs,” (George Koroneos, PharmExec.com, Pharma-Targeted Brandjacking on the Rise.) These are very disturbing numbers when you think about the amount of people throughout the world now turning to Web based pharmacies.
British Columbia 2006 - a middle aged woman, Marcia Bergeron, buys the sleeping pill Ambien from an online pharmacy. In 2007, according to a local coroners report, Ms. Bergeron formally becomes the first person to die from Web purchased contaminated drugs. Ms. Bergeron died from ingesting a generic form of the sleeping pill Ambien she had purchased from an Eastern European online pharmacy. She died from heart arrhythmia - her liver polluted with fatal doses of metal such as aluminum and arsenic.
There is little doubt the economy has led people to the Web as an alternative to paying for otherwise expensive medications. However, much caution should be used before purchasing any medication online. “Though her death [Marcia Bergeron] it seems, was an unusual case. The appalling quality of the drugs that killed her wasn’t.” (Andy Greenberg, Brandjacking Big Pharma, Forbes.com) Not realizing the risks, consumers continue to purchase online drugs from fraudulent companies whose main interest seems to be money and not the safety of the consumer. Unfortunately, most consumers assume that all online medications are made under the same strict guidelines the FDA imposes on U.S. drug manufacturers. The truth is, a more than comfortable amount of online pharmacies manufacture or import drugs from countries that operate far outside the boundaries of U.S. standards. These fraudulent companies blatantly highjack brand names and logos from legitimate companies in an attempt to easily fool the public and market them right along with the lawful online companies. Sadly, we have no way of knowing who they are.
There are some guidelines the consumer should consider before purchasing medication online. First, they should check the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy® (NABP) website www.nabp.net/ip.asp for the latest in approved drug websites and all the news connected with online drug safety. Also, one of the best pipelines for solid advice regarding drugs is the neighborhood pharmacist. Pharmacists form a relationship with their patients and if properly utilized, the information they possess can and does save lives.
Another great article on Brandjacking is in Pharmaceutical Processing’s January 2009, e-newsletter titled Big Pharma Facing Brandjacking Battle., Frederick Felman, Chief Marketing Officer, MarkMonitor
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