Achieving Enforcement Goals and Platform Cleanliness for a Global Athletic Brand

Achieving Enforcement Goals and Platform Cleanliness for a Global Athletic Brand

Working with a leading global athletic apparel brand in 2026 means tackling a dynamic and rapidly evolving threat landscape. 

To stay ahead of counterfeiters and protect its brand reputation, our client and a long-time Corsearch partner, embarked on a six-month pilot program to migrate to our next-generation Zeal 2.0 technology.

By combining increased strategic investment with advanced AI capabilities, our client shifted from linear enforcement growth to scalable results. 

Embracing the Corsearch strategy, which combines AI with our team of experts, this global brand achieved a 200% increase in enforcement with 3,246 counterfeits removed in 2024 and 7,431 in 2025, helping to ensure lasting platform cleanliness.

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The Challenge: Evolving Threats and the Need for Non-Linear Scaling

For 2026, our client set ambitious goals for their Brand Protection program: to aggressively increase auto-moderation and drastically reduce the product life cycle of illicit listings. 

The brand also faced complex, multi-channel challenges:

• Shifting infringement tactics: A need to pivot focus from standard copyright infringement to uncovering hidden, high-volume counterfeit networks.
  
  
• Cross-platform trafficking: Bad actors were increasingly using TikTok to link unsuspecting consumers directly to hidden counterfeit listings on Chinese wholesale marketplaces.
  
  
• Brand defamation and supply chain leaks: Navigating emerging industry challenges, such as offshore manufacturers exposing product origins to bypass international tariffs.

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The Corsearch Solution: AI First, Expert Always

Following a highly successful pilot, this global athletic brand fully transitioned to Zeal 2.0. This upgrade fundamentally changed the scope of their brand protection strategy.

Advanced AI Feature Detection & Auto-Moderation

Corsearch built four custom AI models specifically for our clients highest-priority products. By utilizing advanced image auto-moderation and hidden text indicators, the technology can now instantly detect text and visual cues strongly associated with counterfeit products - even when bad actors try to obscure them.

The "Expert-in-the-loop" Multiplier Effect

Technology alone is only half the equation - our experts help unlock the true power of Zeal 2.0. 

Rather than a linear doubling of results, our expert led approach yielded a 3x increase in enforcement output. Corsearch brand partners to act as a direct extension of the brands team through weekly touchpoints, providing strategic thought leadership, industry trend analysis, and proactive guidance rather than just reactive legal processing.

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The Results: Platform Cleanliness and High Compliance

For our client, the ultimate measure of success is not just a high volume of takedowns, but sustained platform cleanliness - particularly on major global auction sites - and a critically short notice-to-removal life cycle.

Because Corsearch leverages its position as a large market player, the brand benefits from exceptionally high compliance rates, ensuring that once a listing is taken down, it stays down.

Key Program Outcomes:

Looking Ahead: Pioneering Proactive Protection

This world leader in athletic apparels current 200% growth is just the beginning - as a forward-thinking partner and a new member of the Corsearch Customer Advisory Board (CAB), they are actively helping to shape the future of Brand Protection.

Our client has already expressed an interest in being a beta tester for Cortex AI and will be among the first cohort of brands to onboard to CVAN - the first AI-native pre-upload protection system from Corsearch that detects and blocks IP, regulatory, or non-compliant listings before they go live.

Through CVAN, the brand will benefit from proactive protection, enabling the detection and removal of counterfeit listings at the network level before they are ever uploaded to consumer-facing platforms.

Speak to Corsearch today to find out how we secure the world's most valuable brands. 

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