In today’s ultra-competitive business environment brands cannot afford to solely be reactive to potential infringements to their brand and customer experiences. Rather, they must proactively seek to protect these assets and that can only happen with increased visibility at the C-suite level. 

In 2019, we witnessed quite a few leading brands elevating the importance of what it means to protect your brand – whether it comes to trademarks or overall brand perception and value.

Patagonia and Anheuser-Busch battled it out over potential trademark infringements. Co-founder of shoe company Allbirds approached Amazon about selling identical-looking shoes, but perhaps more importantly, called out that the e-commerce giant should also “steal our approach to sustainability.” 

What we saw last year with these brands taking a stand to protect their missions, values and customer experience, we will continue to see more of this in the coming year as brand protection gains greater mindshare in the boardroom and beyond.

– David Naffziger is CEO of BrandVerity

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Instagram password leak. Social Captain, a social tech startup aimed at helping users boost Instagram followers, last week experienced a data breach resulting in thousands of Instagram passwords being made visible in plain text. TechCrunch reported that any user who linked their Instagram account to the platform could view the page source code on their Social Captain profile, displaying their Instagram username and password in unencrypted text. What’s worse – a website bug allowed anyone to access any Social Captain user’s profile without having to log in by simply entering a user’s account ID into the web address, which granted access to their Instagram login credentials. Social Captain confirmed to TechCrunch it had fixed the vulnerability by preventing direct access to other users’ profiles. Instagram said the service breached its terms of service by improperly storing login credentials.

Facebook preaches inclusivity for game creators. Facebook has announced a new toolkit designed to help promote inclusivity among game creators. Facebook collaborated with the Fair Play Alliance — a coalition of gaming companies working to establish healthy online communities — to develop rules that creators can choose to implement before they go live. The eight preset rules include: ‘Be accepting’ (no matter a community member’s race religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity); ‘Respect boundaries’ (in terms of not making advances or comments based on appearances); ‘Don’t criticize’ (someone’s gameplay or game choices); ‘Don’t be rude’ (in terms of threats or insults); ‘Don’t flood the chat’; ‘Don’t self-promote’; ‘Keep it clean’ (with respect to obscene or inflammatory content); and ‘No profanity’. Creators can select a preset rule in the ‘Chat Rules’ section of their dashboards, with fans prompted to accept them before being allowed to comment. The toolkit is currently in beta with plans to roll out globally in the coming months.

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DTC company Shapermint is spending 80% of its marketing budget on Facebook and Instagram – Digiday

Personalization: Opportunities, Pitfalls and How To Get it Right – Facebook for Business

Publisher Advertising And Marketing Teams Are Starting To Converge – AdExchanger

How to Run a Business in 2020 – New York Times

Amazon quietly publishes its latest transparency report – TechCrunch

Tinder, Bumble, and Grindr Are Under Investigation For Allowing Minors – Gizmodo

New U.S. Regulations on Counterfeit Goods Target Marketplaces – Practical Ecommerce