From next Monday 12th September all Adwords advertisers will be allowed to use trademarked terms in their ad copy.
This is the second loosening of the Google trademark policy in the UK over the past few years. Initially Google just started to allow advertisers to bid on trademarked keywords for their competitors and for brands that resellers may sell on their websites and in their shops.
From Monday advertisers will also be allowed to use the name of the brands of the products that they sell in their ad copies e.g. If you are a cleaning company and sell Dyson hoovers then you will be allowed to use the brand name ‘Dyson’ in your ad copy. But – you WILL NOT be allowed to use competitors names in your ad copy.
This will have the obvious effect of increasing the competition on trademarked terms therefore increasing CPC’s and pocketing Google a further great wad of hard earned cash.
In addition it will potentially allow a fairer playing field as previously only large retailers would have been whitelisted to bid on certain trademarked terms e.g. HP or Lexmark, Filofax etc as they would have contacts at the manufacturers. Now smaller retailers/resellers of these products will be able to increase their click through rates by using the brand term in their ad copy.
What are your thoughts on this development – cynical about Google or are you still a fan?
Here is the full policy change doc
