30 Oct Black Friday Brand Impersonation Risks
Black Friday is when impersonators do their worst work. A new guide from World Trademark Review lays out where the fakes show up and how brand owners can rank them. Brand impersonation is the use of a company’s name or logo, or its product photos or promotions, by someone else to sell goods or collect payment. Its timing is the point. Shoppers expect steep discounts that week, so a fake deal looks normal.
Key takeaways
- Impersonation often runs as one operation that links a paid ad to a lookalike domain.
- Live fraudulent ads should be escalated first because they reach new shoppers for as long as the campaign runs.
- Fake storefronts that accept payment cause direct losses and lasting damage to the brand’s reputation.
- Licensors have a stake too, because counterfeit sales under a licensed name can sit outside their royalty reporting.
Where the impersonation shows up
The guide asks brand owners to audit every channel where customers find and buy products.
That covers paid search and social ads, along with fake storefronts. Marketplace listings and social accounts count too. Each one leaves a different trail. Paid ads are the first place to check. Look at who bought the ad and where it actually lands. The landing page is often a scam checkout. Lookalike domains usually differ from the real one by a single character, or add words such as “sale” or “outlet.”
Marketplace listings are harder. The guide names major US marketplaces. It flags unfamiliar sellers. It also flags duplicate listings and copied photos. It makes a point worth repeating: a very low price is a warning sign, but it does not prove a product is counterfeit.
What one case shows about speed
The guide walks through a K-beauty brand that sells directly to US consumers. After one product went viral, counterfeits appeared on several marketplaces. Stolen product photos ran as social ads. Copycat domains targeted people searching for the real brand. Many customers only realized they’d been scammed when they contacted the company about orders that never arrived.
In the first 60 days, the brand’s team identified more than 840 infringing listings and domains across more than 220 platforms. Of those, 529 infringements were resolved, with a median resolution time of 2.9 days. Those numbers come from one brand’s case in the guide, so they describe a specific takedown effort, not a typical result.
The ad, the storefront and the domain are often parts of one operation, so removing one piece leaves the rest working.
That last point is the practical lesson.
A takedown that stops at the ad leaves the domain and storefront live. Treat the whole chain as one case.
Why licensors should care
Impersonation is usually discussed as a retail problem, but it reaches licensing too. In a licensed program, the licensee’s reported net sales generate the royalty, which is typically a percentage of those sales. Counterfeit goods sold under the licensed name pay nothing and may never appear in the licensee’s reports.
This is our reading, not something the guide states.
If a licensor can see fake listings in the market but cannot compare them against reported sales, the gap stays hidden. That’s one reason audit and reporting rights belong in a licensing agreement from the start, so a licensor can ask for the records that explain the numbers.
Questions people ask
What is brand impersonation?
Brand impersonation is the use of a company’s name, logo, product photos or promotions by a third party to sell goods or collect payment. It often includes fake storefronts and lookalike domains. It can also include counterfeit marketplace listings.
Why is Black Friday a high-risk period?
The guide says US shoppers expect steep discounts that week, so a fake deal looks normal. Ad spend and promotions also peak, which gives impersonators more attention to borrow.
How often should brands recheck their channels?
The guide recommends rechecking regularly because new threats appear all season, through Cyber Monday. Live ads and newly registered domains need the most frequent checks.
Does a licensor need to worry about counterfeits?
Counterfeit sales under a licensed name can bypass royalty reporting, which makes them a licensing concern as well as a retail one. Reviewing audit and reporting rights in your agreements is a sensible starting point, and a licensed attorney can advise on the specific terms.
For the marketplace side of this problem, our earlier piece on Temu’s new action plan against illegal goods covers how one platform has responded to listings it considers unlawful. If you’re building a licensing program and want to see how audit and quality terms fit together, the role of quality control in trademark licensing is a useful next read.
If you’re reviewing how your licensed products are tracked and reported, Garfield Agency works with brand owners on the West Coast on program structure. Royalty terms and licensee oversight are part of that work too.
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