As you will certainly have been made aware by the numerous press articles on the subject, from 14th September, Google will extend advertisers’ rights to bid on brand names in all 27 countries of the EU. This is already the case in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland. The European Court of Justice ruled in Google’s favour as it deemed Google did not infringe trademark law by allowing advertisers to bid for keywords corresponding to third-party trademarks.
European advertisers will now be able to bid on any registered brand name to promote their related products or services. Google claims this will enhance user experience: they will have access to more information, be able to read reviews, and compare prices. Google will also gain from this tremendously, as keywords will gain in value as the number of bidders increases. For brand owners though this only spells bad news, it will increase their marketing costs and they also face a bigger threat of brand dilution than ever, with counterfeit sellers being able to bid on their brands. Even with legitimate sales, if you take the example of comparison websites whose sole aim it is to drive traffic to their site, they will now be able to bid on brand names in order to do so. If you use comparison websites to boost your sales, you may find that Google’s new rules mean that you give more than you take. Potentially you could be bidding against a comparison website on your brands and pay for the clicks driving traffic from their site to yours.
Where previously you would have only needed to go to Google to prevent unauthorised bids on your brand from taking place, you will now need to address the issue with each individual advertiser.
However, if all this is going to make your job harder, rest assured it is not without hope either. Bear in mind that you can still lodge a complaint with Google if a third party’s bid on your brand name leads to confusion on the product or services. For example, if a third party bids on your brand but sells a similar product under a different brand, or counterfeit goods, Google has pledged it will remove the bid and if necessary even ban the advertiser from using AdWords.
If a comparison website is bidding on your brand names, then you can take this up with them directly. They will rather stop their bidding than lose you as a merchant.
Finally, if you fear your brands and products will be directly impacted by Google’s decision, CSC offers a wide range of monitoring solutions, and one of them specifically tracks AdWords on Google, helping brand owners keep on top of the game.
Natalie Leroy
Strategic Account Manager