Google has announced that as of May 5th 2008 they will allow advertisers to bid on trademarked keywords in the United Kingdom and Ireland. This means that companies and advertisers will be able to use trademarked terms like 'Nike' in their keyword phrases to trigger advertising.
This is potentially great news for small business owners, as it opens the doors to a wider range of advertising opportunities. However the news is not so good for trademark owners and their resellers who have been able to advertise their trademarked terms with very little competition until now.
It should be noted that although advertisers will be able to use the trademarked keyword terms, they will still be unable to use any trademarked terms in their ad’s copy unless they have permission from the trademark owner. Their ads will then appear alongside official Nike resellers when searched, but they will not have the term 'Nike' in their ad copy.
This may impact in their click through rate and quality score because when a user searches for his or her ‘Nike Shoes’, they generally have the keyword term ‘Nike’ in their minds and as such, the ‘Nike’ ad is more likely to stand out and be clicked on as a result. This will lead to a higher click through rate and a much better quality score for the official ‘Nike’ reseller compared to other ads.
So, advertisers that can use trademarked terms in their ad copy will have a big advantage. Advertisers that cannot will end up pushing their Cost Per Click costs up because they will have a relatively low quality score and won’t to be able to compete.
Will the new changes help increase the advertising opportunities for small businesses without pushing the advertising budgets up to astronomical levels?
Possibly - the more perceptive advertisers may use this as an opportunity to use Google’s new trademark policy as a branding exercise and target competitors’ trademarked terms. For example Coca Cola could advertise when someone types in Pepsi. (not an example of a small business though)
In any case, it will be interesting to see how the new regulations pan out. Google’s trademark laws are only new to the UK, as they have been running in the USA without any major problems for some time.
Watch this space – link to Google’s UK Trademark Policy
Post date 21/04/2008
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