Continuing our interview with UFI Sales Director UK and Ireland, Karl Ridings, we switch our attention to how the company is working alongside distributors to combat counterfeit products, projects in the pipeline and UFI’s impact on motorsport:
Q. We recently ran an article from UFI Filters, which revealed actions taken to beat counterfeiters – what work are you doing with motor factors to ensure only genuine UFI Filters are being supplied and fitted?
Karl Ridings (KR): “Our message is always constant: we highlight the UFI technologies visible and non-visible on our product, via social media, marketing and PR. Our sales team also visits customers and garages, and is present at trade shows, always highlighting the benefits and visibility of our deep filtration media, which, when compared and contrasted with counterfeit parts, are often clearly different.
“For garages and end-users fitting UFI Filters products, we can guarantee genuine UFI products when they are bought directly from our distributors. Indeed, we always recommend buying our filters only from our distributors and being wary of unofficial channels. We train motor factors on how to distinguish a fake filter from an original one.
“At a group level, these measures have been further strengthened by specific training sessions delivered at the most sensitive customs agencies, focusing in particular on products that are subject to the greatest counterfeiting activity, such as those from the ONE family of UFI Filters.
“We have tightened the surveillance measures and have further extended our internet business intelligence activity globally, in partnership with CONVEY, a company based in Italy specialised in internet and brand protection services. This monitoring activated has resulted in the interception of more than 2.5 million illegal parts transactions on the major marketplaces at global level and succeeded in removing more than 8,000 commercial advertisements posted on 33 e-commerce platforms, preventing a potential turnover of more than €5 million in counterfeit goods sales.”
Q. Away from ‘fighting the fakes’, what other initiatives/projects are UFI Filters doing to support distributors?
KR: “The sales team are always actively supporting our customers, utilising the very high quality marketing literature and using original equipment (OE) product samples to demonstrate UFI Filters’ quality and OE technology. For our new range of ARGENTIUM cabin filters, we are offering initiatives to our distributors for an initial stock pack.
“UFI Filters ARGENTIUM is a revolutionary antibacterial filtering media, with the exclusive FormulaUFI.Stratiflex. It consists of three layers of synthetic polymer fibres: antimicrobial, adsorbing and structural.
“The antimicrobial layer incorporates silver particles with a powerful antimicrobial action, thanks to Biomaster silver biocide (tested to ISO 22196:2011 standards) which inhibits bacterial growth by up to 99%. When combined, these layers block pollen, dirt and tyre dust, inhibiting the growth of fungi, mould and bacteria while adsorbing sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.
“Thanks to the presence of activated carbon, UFI Filters ARGENTIUM guarantees a filtration efficiency of over 98.5% for particles with a diameter of 2.5 microns, and also eliminates harmful gases and unpleasant odours, as indicated by laboratory tests carried out in accordance with ISO 11155-1.
“ARGENTIUM is a high-quality product, developed using the OE pedigree of UFI Filters. In addition, due to its sophisticated level of product and packaging characteristics, it is much more difficult to counterfeit.”
Q. I understand UFI Filters is still heavily involved in motorsport? Do you invite customers to race weekends?
KR: “We do have some opportunities for customers to attend. Last year, for example, we held a day at Silverstone for some customers to experience the Porsche Carrera Cup car as a passenger, but also to drive a Porsche and BMW M3 around the famous circuit.
“Motorsport has a huge following in the UK; with UFI Filters being used by nine out of 10 Formula 1 teams (with over 110 filters being used in each race weekend and many other formulas across the racing spectrum), we use motorsport as a means to demonstrate our passion for providing engine filtration capable of performing in the most extreme conditions.
“The sponsorship in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB, moreover, has helped with brand exposure and recognition. The same goes for our heavy duty range, which was used to support the six-time British number one, Ryan Smith, in the British Truck Racing Championship. All of these actions help the brand awareness of UFI Filters in the UK across media, social media and PR exercises.”
