Google allow AdWord bidding on competitors company and brand names

Google have announced that from 5th May 2008, it will once again be possible to bid on third party trademarked brand names via Google AdWords.  This means anyone could pay to appear on Google for searches for your company or product names.

Why now?

Speculation revolves around a recent case brought against Yahoo! by catering business owner Victor Wilson, the owner of the trademark ‘Mr Spicy’.  The judge found in favour of Yahoo!, though in this case Yahoo’s broad-matching technology was responsible for showing a third parties listing having bid on the single word “spicy” and not the protected “Mr Spicy” brand. This change to Google’s policy for now only affects the UK and Ireland. The USA and Canada have had a similar policy in operation since 2004.

So what does this mean for your business?

Reputation management has been a hot topic for a while now, and this certainly presents further issues.
If third parties are bidding on your brand, then what are they saying?  The immediate consideration has been competitors biting into your brand traffic (people searching by your brand names) and siphoning-off sales based upon your brand strength.  It’s certainly a risk, which re-emphasise the importance of appearing in paid search listings for your own brand.

However it’s not just your competitors that you need to watch out for, but brand detractors also.  Earlier this year Marks and Spencer were threatened by a union campaigning about staffing policies. Their planned method of attack was through keyword Google AdWord campaigns using the brand name – brand bidding – around their own messages.

Within the industry, we recognised this was doomed to failure due to Google’s restrictions on trademarked brand bidding.  Ironically the campaign achieved substantial press coverage due to its ‘innovative’ approach, and perhaps could be considered a PR success, despite it not working as originally intended. With the new policies in place from May, M&S and other brands will be susceptible to this type of campaign once again.

If your company has picked up some enemies along the way, you’ll need to watch this space very carefully and consider your own reputation management strategy.

What about the Quality Score?

You don’t need to hit the panic button quite yet. Back in summer 2006 Google introduced a Quality Score system to the AdWords platform that influences the price you have to pay for clicks based upon a relevancy algorithm. What this means is that along with the long term AdWords pricing factor, click through rate, Google also consider the relevancy of your creative. That is the text that appears in your listing and your landing page that the keyword bid upon links to.

Rest assured then that the brand owner will always be more relevant to their own brand terms than any third party. The Quality Score should ensure that click costs are considerably less expensive for brand owners than brand hijackers.

Brand wars or keyword amnesty?

So come 5th May, will it be all out war, with brands bidding on all their competitors brand terms and vice versa?  Possibly not. There is some suggestion that there will be a number of ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ in place whereby companies will respectfully agree not to bid on one another’s brand terms.

Affiliates may seize the opportunity with both hands however, unless merchants insist on competitor-brand restrictions similar to merchant-brand restrictions that have been common place in recent years.

As stated, reputation management is a key part of the planning behind an effective Paid Search strategy. If you have a concern that this could affect you or you simply aren’t sure of what it all means to you then speak to one of Propellernet’s expert search marketing team and they will be happy to advise you.