“We are so glad to have Bolster to protect the YoungLA brand; we are very pleased with the result.”
Mei-Ling Peterson, IT Director at YoungLA.
Company Overview
Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, YoungLA is the fastest growing athleisure brand in the US, catering to style-conscious and fitness-driven individuals. Founded in 2014, YoungLA has established themselves as a leading force in the industry by combining effective influencer marketing strategies and high-quality products.
From meet-and-greet events to limited edition product drops, YoungLA’s team of just over 100 employees has created a sought-out brand with a commitment to customer satisfaction that consumers are fiercely loyal to.
Challenges
As a quickly growing athleisure brand, with lots of hype around their new product drops, YoungLA faced a daunting battle against scammers pretending to sell YoungLA products. IT Director Mei-Ling Peterson shared, “I had worked to take down fake sites for other companies before; YoungLA had more fake websites than usual pretending to sell our clothes.”
YoungLA was worried about their customers losing money to these imitators. “We pride ourselves on customer experience, so to have loyal customers receiving low quality clothing from the fake sites is not acceptable,” says Peterson.
The heightened number of spoofed domains preyed upon the sense of urgency that customers felt due to YoungLA’s marketing strategy. When the athleisure brand schedules a product drop or customer event, there is a limited amount of time a customer has to purchase before they sell out. Hackers use the increased noise and time pressure around these marketing promotions to target loyal customers.
Even while YoungLA was actively working to remove the spoofed sites, it became overwhelming to handle the surge. Some of the hosting providers for fake sites are located outside the US, making them more difficult to work with.
In addition to the growing problem of spoofed sites, YoungLA began to notice ads on popular social media platforms, like TikTok, pushing their loyal and unsuspecting audience to the fake websites, apps, and accounts containing counterfeit products. It became essential to find a speedy and scalable remedy.
Choosing Bolster
Bolster was the clear choice. With automated detection and a rapid risk response using AI and deep technology integrations, Bolster leverages a mix of proprietary algorithms and 3rd party threat intelligence feeds, built on a scalable browser infrastructure, to rapidly detect and evaluate potential typosquats. Bolster’s AI technology then automates a takedown through APIs or conversational AI. YoungLA determined Bolster’s domain detection and takedown process to be the best option on the market.
“It was clear that Bolster was the top solution for domain protection – I knew pretty quickly that I needed to see a demo,” says Peterson.
When YoungLA sent the Bolster team one of the most pressing scam sites the team had been fighting to remove, Bolster quickly took it down, thanks to their partnership with the hosting provider. From the first takedown, through onboarding, and to ongoing risk management, Bolster has proved to be a trusted partner for for YoungLA’s constant battle against fake sites.
After YoungLA’s logos and branded assets were uploaded into the Bolster platform, Bolster was quickly able to start working against digital threats. Bolster’s machine learning quickly took down over 200 fake websites for YoungLA in their first 6 months’ implementation, and continues to keep a lookout for others.
“Bolster took down all the fake websites we had identified within the first few weeks of working with us. It’s so good to have Bolster working for us so we don’t have to worry about fake domains anymore.” IT Director for YoungLA, Mei-Ling Peterson.
Key Benefits
Putting Customer Experience First
After integrating with Bolster, YoungLA was able to protect their customers and their brand. Bolster was able to immediately take down the fake websites targeting YoungLA, as well as identify potentially threatening domains, which allowed YoungLA’s team to focus on what really matters: their customers.
“We are always trying to bring our customers new and unique clothing options, and now we can go back to focusing on our product initiatives and not be sidetracked with scams,” says Peterson.
Expanding Their Market
YoungLA is working to expand outside of the US. Bolster’s established relationships with international hosting providers and proven takedown success can ensure the YoungLA brand is being protected.
“We know we will face a wider variety of fake sites originating from new locations; Bolster has already proven to be masters of the takedown process so I trust we will be secure,” says Peterson.
Looking Ahead
YoungLA has already started using Bolster’s Social Media Monitoring and Takedown technology to identify fake ads targeting their audience through social media channels so they can continue to protect their customers from unique and emerging scams.
The leading athleisure brand is also looking more closely at monitoring threats on the dark web with Bolster’s Dark Web Monitoring module. By monitoring the dark web with Bolster AI, YoungLA can better track trends and incoming threats, allowing them to better secure themselves and their customers.
For more information on Bolster’s suite of AI-driven cyber detection and takedown solutions, request a demo with our team today.
