Google Allowing Trademarks To Be Used in AdWords Copy in U.S.

[afterhours]

http://searchengineland.com/google-a...-adwords-19320

Lot of big brands are going to be pissed off...

Is this Google getting desperate after less than stellar Q1 earnings?

[Mel66]

I think it's about time. Are the big brands pissed off at all the grocery circulars that use their trademark?

Don't mean to sound like an ass but honestly, why is PPC any different from print, yellow pages, etc.?

[afterhours]

Originally Posted by Mel66

I think it's about time. Are the big brands pissed off at all the grocery circulars that use their trademark?

Don't mean to sound like an ass but honestly, why is PPC any different from print, yellow pages, etc.?

Not saying I don't agree with you, but to play devil's advocate for a minute, I'm confused as to how grocery circulars have the same intent as advertisers piggy-backing on a big brands.

[Mel66]

I'm looking at it from a distributor / authorized reseller perspective. If I'm Foot Locker and I want to advertise Nike shoes, under the old policy I couldn't use "Nike" in my PPC ads unless I got express written permission from Nike. Not all big brands are willing to spend time writing authorization letters to Google, so Foot Locker might have to say "Brand name shoes at low prices" instead of "Nike shoes at low prices." Not quite the same bang for your buck.

If Nike had to write special letters to newspapers for every store that promoted their shoes in print ads, there wouldn't be many circulars with Nike in them.

Why restrict PPC that way?

[afterhours]

Originally Posted by Mel66

I'm looking at it from a distributor / authorized reseller perspective. If I'm Foot Locker and I want to advertise Nike shoes, under the old policy I couldn't use "Nike" in my PPC ads unless I got express written permission from Nike. Not all big brands are willing to spend time writing authorization letters to Google, so Foot Locker might have to say "Brand name shoes at low prices" instead of "Nike shoes at low prices." Not quite the same bang for your buck.

If Nike had to write special letters to newspapers for every store that promoted their shoes in print ads, there wouldn't be many circulars with Nike in them.

Why restrict PPC that way?

I have to disagree. As it currently stands, Nike at least has control over who gets to use their trademark terms. Much like many big brands do today, they would grant permission to their top resellers like Foot Locker, EastBay, and so on.

Also, the authorization process is a breeze. It literally takes a minute and is submitted online.

With the change in policy, it's only going to make the competition more fierce and the messaging in copy louder as advertisers try to differentiate themselves. It'll especially be frustrating for navigational searchers who now have to look at the display URL to tell Nike apart from say Zappos.com.

[jag]

The article clearly explains how are things happening and these changes will help all distributor, reseller, brand owners and Google

[AussieWebmaster]

Yes I think Google has decided that brand play is needed to get the Fortune 100 companies to come over to PPC in a much bigger way