FESI – A public awareness campaign against buying counterfeit golf clubs online

July 12, 2016 – FESI (the Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry) has launched an online based public awareness campaign entitled: “Score the Real Thing”, on the negative aspects of purchasing counterfeit sporting goods online, golf clubs included.

The campaign is co-funded by the EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property office) and is centered on a campaign website which presents the main character: Buck Misfit. This colorful animation, which conveys the campaign message in humorous ways, is also promoted in English, French, Spanish and Italian through the campaign’s social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

The “Score the Real Thing” campaign is launched in the run-up to the European football championship, which often leads to a spike in sales of fake football jerseys. However, the campaign also targets other products and will for instance also feature animated video’s related to golf and running products.

A recent study by the EUIPO also showed that €26.3 billion of revenue is lost annually due to counterfeit clothing, footwear and accessories, including sport clothing and footwear. Furthermore, a similar study showed that counterfeit sports equipment, such as footballs, helmets, golf clubs, tennis rackets and skis, cost the industry €500 million every year.

The core objective of this awareness campaign is to alter the online shopping behaviours of youth. It will highlight the dangers of handing out credit card details to dodgy websites. In addition it will demonstrate the embarrassment of purchasing products, that may turn out to be defective or of sub-standard quality.

FESI’s Secretary General Alberto Bichi comments: “It is crucial to make our youth aware of the detrimental consequences that buying fake sporting goods online may have. Also for their own interest, we hope that this campaign will activate youngsters, to ‘Score the Real Thing’.

More information at www.scoretherealthing.eu.

By REDACCIÓN