Spanx x Corsearch: Moving to Proactive Brand Protection

Spanx is a globally recognized apparel brand that revolutionized the fashion industry by fundamentally redefining the shapewear category. 

Evolving from a single innovative undergarment into a world-leading lifestyle brand, Spanx now offers a diverse portfolio of shapewear, loungewear, and everyday apparel. 

To safeguard its legacy and protect its loyal customer base from inauthentic products, they required a digital Brand Protection strategy as robust and forward-thinking as its own product line.

The Challenge: Navigating the Digital No Man's Land

Before partnering with Corsearch, the Brand Protection landscape for Spanx was challenging due to information overload. 

The sheer volume of global marketplaces, e-platforms, and social media sites made monitoring the digital frontline incredibly difficult.

The environment operated like an anonymous no man's land.

Building a Foundation: Where Technology Meets Human Insight

Previous tools Spanx relied on lacked the rapid detection rate, broad range of infringement scan capabilities, and the ability to organize the data into cohesive summaries that identified key target platforms and sellers.

To combat this, Spanx integrated Corsearch's technology and algorithms to aggregate complex data, paired crucially with Corsearch experts who filter this information with a human eye.

Corsearch Zeal 2.0 is a true AI-native platform that is designed to address the "digital shadows” where AI is used by bad actors to create fake and hard-to-detect listings - an upgrade over traditional Brand Protection services with AI added on. Through Zeal 2.0, the team was able to fundamentally shift their mindset. 

Instead of spending all of their time chasing individual sellers across many platforms, the Brand Protection focus shifted to understanding the full ecosystem and patterns behind the infringement. 

A major strategic advantage of this new Corsearch platform has been the ability to cluster thousands of fragmented, isolated listings across marketplaces to map out the hidden networks behind them. While granular data is essential to their Brand Protection efforts, Spanx emphasizes that the true benefit of the partnership comes from the ability to zoom out and form a coherent picture of the threat landscape, allowing them to target the right parties with the greatest impact on their brand, armed with sufficient evidence to support the most appropriate enforcement strategies.

Generally, the nature of Brand Protection continues to present a 'whack-a-mole' issue, but the speed, expertise, partner relationships, and data that Corsearch provides have served as a strong defense mechanism and strengthened opportunities for proactive measures.

Previous data can be leveraged to pinpoint high priority platforms to action and mitigate infringement cycles from spiraling. 

Intelligence-Led Disruption and Deep Investigations

This comprehensive visibility has allowed Spanx to convert raw data signals into actionable, high-impact enforcement strategies.

• Network disruptions: In one collaborative investigation, a single infringing ad discovered on a social media platform ultimately led to the exposure of an entire network of connected fraudulent websites.
  
  
• Tracing the source: When the data highlighted specific marketplaces as key areas of concern, Spanx and Corsearch launched deeper, full-cycle investigations. This included efforts to track down the geographic source of the infringing physical stock.

Learn how Corsearch investigates and shuts down the source through our Investigations 360 service. 

Strategic Prioritization and Protecting the Customer

Having a clear view of data trends, such as the top affected platforms and products, ensures that Spanx focuses its budget and internal resources on the most impactful targets. 

This intelligence informs internal cross-collaboration; for instance, Spanx realized that the ad tools it uses to market its products to customers also attract bad actors attempting to divert them to their own counterfeit products.

This data-driven approach translates directly to real-world impact:

Customer Experience Integration

Spanx has strengthened internal feedback loops by informing teams, including Customer Service, Sales, and Branding, of any major Brand Protection issues. Protecting customers is a collective priority. 

Proactive Removals

A top priority is removing threats from high-traffic platforms where customers actually shop, neutralizing suspicious content before consumers are negatively affected.

Product Safeguards

Spanx is now establishing pre-launch safeguards for new products by leveraging marketing overviews to focus its monitoring of high risk platforms during peak product launches. In parallel, the team has reprioritized resources to maintain strong protection of high-performing, long-standing Spanx products. 

The Future: Navigating AI, Policy, and Collaboration

As digital threats evolve, Spanx is keeping a close eye on the horizon to ensure they are able to protect their customers and brand reputation.

One emerging challenge is the rapid proliferation of AI bots, which bad actors now use to generate and test thousands of versions of infringing ads, threatening to overwhelm standard takedown processes. 

Another significant hurdle is the pace disparity between innovation and regulation; as tech moves much faster than global legal policy, taking final legal action remains incredibly difficult when bad actors hide behind unverified physical addresses and fake registry names.

Spanx practices a collaborative approach, where brand ownership of protecting IP assets and direct engagement with Corsearch’s team becomes a joint effort in building an airtight enforcement foundation to combat the growing issue of AI-driven infringements. 

Conclusion

For other brands navigating these challenges, Spanx offers a clear piece of advice: treat Brand Protection as a highly collaborative effort. 

Brands must take accountability for their own data, work closely with their service partners, and remain hands-on to bridge the gap between digital intelligence and real-world disruption.

Speak to us today to find out how Corsearch helps protect the world's most valuable brands. 

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