May 19, 2009 by Jenny Sanderson
Google has courted huge controversy amongst the world’s brands by announcing a relaxation of its trademark policy. The search engine giant has essentially lifted the ban on companies using competing brand names as keywords in their campaigns, meaning that companies with deep pockets will basically be able to force their competitors out of first placed ad positions even for their own brand names.
Why Google have done this is not hard to fathom. The policy shift is likely to start an arms race of sorts between brands as they struggle to be number one for each other’s brand names. With a maximum cost per click of £80, Google will be expecting to reap huge financial rewards from companies who simply want to beat their competitors to first place, regardless of the cost.
Obviously a click price of around £80 will make a decent return on investment pretty much impossible for all but the most exclusive of products though that’s not really the point. Even in these chastened times there are still plenty of huge brands that will see appearing in first position for their competitors’ brand names as a matter of principle and will simply keep upping the bids as their competitors do.
It’s basically a game of corporate chicken from which Google stand to do very well indeed.
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