Blog

The Google trademark update has been in place since the 5 May 2008. A month on I thought it would be useful to review the effects of the change. Firstly I’ll take a look at paid search (PPC) activity on Google Adwords and how it’s affected my clients.

Here’s a summary my observations:

• As predicted, competitors are now bidding on our clients' trademarks.
• Our clients’ average cost per click (CPC) has been pushed up by 20-25%.
• The increase in costs was seen from the 6 May (the day after the trademarks were changed and the day after the UK bank holiday).
• The use of trademarks in competitor adverts has been relatively easy to monitor but difficult to stop (only Google can stop advertisers from using trademarks).
• The Google Adwords editorial team have been overwhelmed by the number of advert review requests - we have seen significant delays in competitor ads being removed.
• Sales via the affiliate channel have increased. Sales have been migrating from paid search to affiliate sales.

Now let’s look at some of the wider market ramifications:

• Google Europe has made a heap more money as advertisers rush in to bid on each others trademarked terms.
• It now costs all advertisers more money to maintain their Adwords campaigns. The result is that paid search is delivering diminished returns.
• Of the press articles and news items I have read, I can’t find an advertiser that’s happy about Google's decision to pull out of Adwords trademarking.
• Major retailers – such as the big supermarkets – now have ‘gentlemen's agreements’ in place amongst themselves to avoid the others trademarks. The rationale presumably being there’s no need to confuse the end user.
• Rather than relying on Google to protect against trademarks, advertisers are now taking competitors and/or Google to court (amongst others read about Louis Vuitton versus Google).
• Google's decision to not protect trademark owners is not final. They’ve given themselves the option to back-track. Reading between the lines – Google might re-instate their trademark policy if their hand is forced by the law courts, or the advertisers kick up enough of a fight.

If you have any updates or thoughts on the above then please comment on this post. We'd love to hear from you.

About the author

As our Head of Consultancy, Robin helps Coast Digital clients develop and grow their business through expert consultancy, digital marketing advice and guidance. He joined the team at Coast Digital in 2006 and works with the majority of our clients.

Robin has worked in digital since 2000 - seeing in the last days of the .com boom, sticking with digital through the bang and since then, helping to advise companies on their digital developments and strategy.

He has held positions both client-side and agency-side, working with a number of FTSE/NASDAQ-listed companies and international NGOs.

He has worked on all aspects of web – from developing business cases to specifying requirements, designing and marketing websites to running a web management team. Robin contributes to a number of blogs in his spare time.

Comments