"Old and New Economic Theories of Brands and Competition Law: Rethinking the Relationship": an Open Lecture by Ioannis Lianos

On January 30 an open lecture was held by Ioannis Lianos, a leading researcher at the Laboratory, and Professor at University College London. To a diverse audience consisting of lawyers specializing in antitrust law, employees of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation, instructors, and students of the HSE, Ioannis presented the findings of his latest work - "Brands, Product Differentiation and EU Competition Law".

The research was devoted to the problem of the impact of brands on the competitive process and to relations between consumers and trademark rights' owners. Practice for the protection of competition often intersects with the fields of branding and product differentiation. However, as long as lawyers do not have for tools the methods of advanced differentiation for understanding the nature of brand interplay - which would be bound to brand management theory or business practices grounding - Professor Lianos proposes the use of an interdisciplinary approach for analysing the competitive process.

The need for such a new perspective is already long overdue. The existing economic theory of product differentiation is unable to form a complete picture of the impact of brands on competition and, ultimately, on consumers. The narrowness of the existing theoretical approach becomes apparent in light of the growing influence of retail chains and the active development of their own 'private labels’ trademarked products. Many issues arise in antitrust law in connection with the development of 'social branding', which itself stems from the idea that brands bring to consumers important social and existential meanings, fostering identity. Thus, there are multilateral lines of communication via the nexus of branding; consumers, brand owners and their target audiences are dependent on one another.

We invite you to download an audio recording of the discussion, in its original English version  and also in Russian.

You can download the presentation here -  Brands: old and new thinking_by Ioannis Lianos.