Brand protection specialists SnapDragon Monitoring has announced new plans today to grow its international reach by 25% in 2023 after it experienced one of its most successful years to date in 2022, with its annual turnover increasing by 29% and exports increasing to 49% .
SnapDragon is a Queen’s Award winning, brand protection business based in Edinburgh. Last year the company grew its headcount by 20%, with its latest recruits being seasoned legal professional, Ewan McIntyre, who has been appointed as the company’s first General Counsel, and veteran beauty guru, Wilma McDaniel, who has joined as head of beauty to help educate on and tackle counterfeits in the sector.
SnapDragon’s detection technology has played a key role in preventing the online sales of millions of fake and copycat products, protecting the end-consumer, who frequently buys a fake product unwittingly, as well as company reputations and revenues. The company also recently made significant developments to its brand protection platform, not only launching a new self-service offering of its proprietary software, Swoop, but also upgrading the platform to include Delphic Vision to help customers detect logo infringements, and the reputations of public facing individuals challenged by their likeness being used in deepfakes. Regardless of the source, customers can immediately identify listings with Delphic and work to have them removed before they do further damage, duping potential customers or causing personal mayhem.
Adopting advanced AI techniques, including both text and image analysis, has allowed SnapDragon to present ranked relevant results to its clients automatically, and in a fraction of the time, while its affordable logo and image detection capabilities add a depth rarely found in brand protection.
“We are delighted with our success over the last year, which has seen our businesses grow not just in figures, but also in Dragons. Everyday consumers and businesses get caught out by fakes and counterfeits, and we are on a mission to help our customers and prospects do more to identify these fraudulent goods and websites before they cause harm. In the next year, we plan to scale the business across further international regions, and also increase our footprint within the legal sector. The ultimate goal is to make the online world a safer place for both consumers and businesses,” said Rachel Jones, CEO of SnapDragon Monitoring.
Today counterfeiting is a huge business that targets all industries, and recent estimates revealed that over £13.6 billion worth of fake goods were imported into Britain in 2020, which resulted in lost sales to legitimate businesses worth £9 billion. Fraudsters will often bank on the success of coveted products, making their own cheaper alternatives in a bid to trick consumers into purchases. The consequences of this not only cause loss in sales, but genuine brands come directly in the firing line for not doing more to protect customers against this illegal and dangerous trade. SnapDragon acts as a first in the line of defence against this threat, helping brands including Orchard Toys, Hornit and Ellie Cashman, detect fakes of their products and have them removed from the web before they cause harm.