Last year’s trademark bidding change saw gentlemen’s agreements swiftly fall by the wayside as it became acceptable to bid on competitor’s terms.
In the UK, Google’s plans to allow advertisers to use competitors’ trademarks in the text of their ads, will of course encourage the cowboys. But before jumping on this bandwagon, I’d encourage any brand to consider how exploiting competitors’ trademarks will give you a competitive edge. You should have the clearest of differentiators that doesn’t explicitly denigrate competitor brands . You should carry it through and ensure that your messages are consistently supported in all copy. Failure to do so could denigrate your quality scoring and result in you having to spend more to maintain rank position.
Clearly many brands, for example supermarkets who refer to competitor’s prices in their TV ads, could extend their campaigns successfully. But if this is not the case, direct digital marketing should be consistent with other marketing messages and channels. So if mentioning competitors in other channels is not something you would consider, then don’t do it in your paid search ads. It will devalue your brand.
Resellers of branded products - brands who already mention ‘cheaper than’ or ‘cheapest’ or ‘best price /range / quality’ in their existing marketing message will be able to generate further stand out and mop-up the traffic around an existing, strong brand. Since they trade off other established, recognised brands there will be little change to their brand or marketing strategy. But their paid search budgets may rocket as the competition increases to compete via brand association.
As a result big brands may be forced to increase their spend to reinforce their brand equity or risk losing traffic to ‘brand representatives’ who aren’t representative of the true brand values, the marketing message nor indeed the brand’s products and services.
Brand values should influence every decision that gets made, on- and offline, from paid search creative to in-store plastic bag policy. If a brand changes this approach based on an ‘opportunity’, without looking at the wider picture then that brand can be misrepresented and brand advocates may be quick to judge, blog, comment, tweet putting the brand at the risk of a digital beating.
The other thing to bear in mind is that consumers have a pretty good idea about what they want to buy, so are unlikely to be impressed by a pushy sales pitch about a product or service they don’t want. That said, there are ways to use this technique to your benefit, provided you can back any claims you are making to do with price or performance comparison, with validated research, eg saying, our tyres are miles better than Brand X, will certainly attract clicks searching for Brand X. And, since you are making a fair claim there will be no repercussions.
It’s all about managing your brand’s reputation. Companies make huge investments in building brands and maintaining brand equity. By hijacking a competitor’s trademarks you risk damaging your own by confusing your messages with those of competitor’s.
Despite the maturity of direct digital marketing; it is still all too often treated as an add on and given lesser attention than other marketing channels. Yet most marketers would agree that consistency is vital in conveying a brand’s message.
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