Digital Times » Search

Advertisers can use third party trademarks in their Google ad text

Stephen — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:01:40 +0000

Google has announced it will allow Irish, UK and Canadian advertisers to use trademarks within their ad text. “These advertisers include resellers, sellers of component, replacement or compatible parts corresponding to the trademark and informational sites,” says Google. Last year Google changed its trademark policy in the U.S. to allow advertisers to use third party trademarks in their ad text even if they don’t own that trademark (or have permission from the trademark owner to use it). The move caused consternation for some brand and trademark owners because it allowed resellers to buy third party trademarks as keywords.
Since May 2008, advertisers have been able to bid on trademarked phrases on Google, but use of trademarks within ad text has strictly been with the trademark owner’s permission only. Google says the changes to allow third party trademarks in ad text is a good thing. “We believe that this change has helped both our users and advertisers by improving the usefulness of text ads on Google.com and across partner sites in the U.S. For example, resellers of jeans have been able to highlight the actual brands they sell in their ad text making their ads even more specific and relevant for users,” said the company in a statement.
One of the stipulations of an advertiser including trademarks in ad text is that they must link through to a page about the trademark or product. This means that retailers and resellers will be able to use the trademark, but competitors will not.
This latest move by Google follows its landmark legal victory over Louis Vuitton in the EU courts. Louis Vuitton took legal action against Google over the use of its company’s trademarked brand names in search ads. “Google has not infringed trademark law by allowing advertisers to purchase keywords corresponding to their competitors’ trademarks,” said the European Court of Justice. Many trademark owners feel some advertisers can now enjoy a commercial advantage by piggy-backing on the reputation of the trademarks.
Others suggest the trademark argument is irrelevant considering the advancements in technology and how functions like Google Goggles (above) will change the nature of search and the use or trademarks forever.

Digital advertising will rise by 50% in five years?

Digital Times — Mon, 17 May 2010 09:23:03 +0000

As the top Google executives gather in Hertfordshire, England for their annual Zeitgeist conference, Nikesh Arora, the company’s president of global sales told the Telegraph newspaper that online advertising will increase by a whopping 50% in the next five years.
“The next big wave will be consumers consuming more and more video on the web, and you will see more and more brand advertising and display advertising move to the web,” he said. Marketing logic, he added means “you have to go where the eyeballs are, where the customers are”.
He admitted his claims that in the next five years 30-50% of advertising will be digital “is a bold claim” but added, “in the UK it is already over 20%. In the US it is over 10%. This video wave is going to tip the balance”.
Arora said that Google, which makes more than 95% of its revenue from advertising, would be concentrating on new product launches, cloud computing (which takes the place of company IT systems) and evolving search with real-time products, such as including Twitter updates in search results.

Used car searches hint at price-conscious drivers

Stephen — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 12:35:05 +0000

You know consumer confidence is returning somewhat when car sales start to increase. New car sales that is. However, one sure sign that people are being more cautious with their cash is when used car sales increase. We just got some figures from carzone.ie, audited by the ABCe, that hint at a slight recovery in consumer confidence but also indicate Ireland is no longer the brand new Range Rover, cash-guzzling, credit-fueled machine it once was. Over 700,000 people visited the site in January 2010 viewing over 100 million pages of used car lists. This was an increase of 54% from January 2009.
The stats also show that BMW is the most searched for car (eight million searches) with the 3-series the most popular model. 585,000 people also searched for Porsche, obviously in some vain hope that a 911 may be more affordable in the midst of a recession.
“Recent research indicates that over 60% of people looking to buy a car now start their search on the internet,” said John O’Connell, MD of carzone.ie.
The rising cost of fuel is now a serious consideration, with 75% of people searching for diesel rather than petrol engines.

Bing targets UK market with ad campaign

Digital Times — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:56:34 +0000

Microsoft is going to spend millions of pounds in the UK advertising its search engine Bing. Above is just one of the ads. Google has 90% of the UK’s search engine market. It will be interesting to see how the ads will perform on a viral level as well as how much impact they’ll have on that enormous Google share of market (GSM).

Apple in talks with Microsoft on mobile search deal?

Digital Times — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:13:48 +0000

Reports from US blogs and websites suggest Apple and Microsoft are currently holding talks to make Bing the default search engine for the iPhone. As Apple and Google go head-to-head in the battle for mobile ad dollars a rift is emerging between the two giants, The launch of Google’s Nexus One smart phone didn’t help relations either.

Currently Bing has 11% of the mobile search market while Google enjoys 86%, most of that coming through the iPhone. If Apple agrees to turn its iPhone into Bing engines then Microsoft becomes the leader in mobile search at the stroke of a pen.

The irony is, Apple and Microsoft are ‘old enemies’ but when it comes to the search engine market they are not competing and Apple will be very happy to take a large sum of money off Microsoft while at the same time pulling the rug from under Google’s feet.

It is rumored that Google’s next big move is to launch its own net book. Again, it will be competing directly with Apple so a deal between Apple and Bing looks entirely possible. How things change.