This week Google have changed their trademark policy and there are now no restrictions on bidding on trademark names.
Google had previously not allowed this within the UK and had enforced the none use of trademarks as adword triggers.
The new policy has been in effect for a few days but it remains to be seen if anyone is taking advantage of these new changes.
When looking at big brand names such as Tesco there are still very few people bidding on these terms. When a search is made for a trademark name there is now a huge opportunity to recieve impressions and a possibility to “hijack clicks.”
One of the reasons as to why there are so few companies bidding on these terms is that it could potentially cause inflation among these trademark terms and companies may have to invest large amounts of money into keeping their brand safe.
This policy change how ever may allow smaller businesses to fight back against the brands. One company that has stated that they will make the most of this change is online agency cruise.co.uk.
Matt Brittin, Google UK Director, stated that advertisers were used to seeing their rivals adverts appear in the sponsored listings due to searches on connected words. He said, “This change just builds on what happens already.”
It still remains to be seen what implications this policy change will have on UK Marketing
