Can I safely use competitor's name in PPC ad?

by Silly Grin

Posted: 13 years ago 7 replies

I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere on this forum... I couldn't locate it.
Question: One of our competitors has lots of searches with keyword as their product name. Our customers prefer our product. Can we use their product name with ®, as our keyword and in the Adwords ad? Coke and Pepsi do it all the time...

#competitor #keyword #ppc #safely

paulgl 13 years ago

You can bid on anything you want.

Google may reject it, but not based only on that.

It's very, very common.

However, I fond this line kinda funny:

"Our customers prefer our product."

Well, you better hope they do or they won't be your customers very long.

Maybe your competitor's customers prefer them?

Paul
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- FrankRumbauskas 13 years ago
  
  You can do it as long as the product owner doesn't have a registered trademark filed with Google.
  
  For example, people were using "Never Cold Call Again" in their ads so I filed my registered trademark with Google and now that phrase is automatically blocked if someone tries to use it.
  
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  Silly Grin 13 years ago
  
  paulgl and Frank, I have an idea how to proceed.
  
  Thanks for the help!
  
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  paulgl 13 years ago
  
  Does that include half.com? And just below it
  Amazon is using it as well.
  
  Granted, it's your book....
  
  Paul
  
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  dburk 13 years ago
  
  Hi Silly,
  
  You can use the keyword to trigger ads, but no, you cannot use a trademark in your ad text. As Frank wrote you may get it past AdWords if they haven't filed the trademark with Google, however this does not immunize you against a lawsuit. I wouldn't risk it, but don't take my word for it, ask an attorney.
  
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  paulgl 13 years ago
  
  You can use trademarks and I just showed that sites like amazon, half, buy
  have triggers to put those words in the ads. A search for ipad, wii, etc. pulls
  all ads with those terms in them.
  
  It's really up to google to accept them or not.
  
  Mac is trademarked by apple. Check out this ad from microsoft:
  
  That is exactly what the OP proposed to do.
  
  Paul
  
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Silly Grin 13 years ago

The PC vs Mac thing looks very pertinent. I'm sure Mac has filed a registered tm with Google, or have the $ to do so. Very interesting.
I'm going to register with Google anyway, not that it helped Frank with the book.
I'm discussing this with my business partner, might go ahead and try a keyword. We're not afraid of lawsuits (we're little guys), proposition of countersuing has worked in several instances as long as we're acting out of truth.
Cease and desist letter - my partner has a counter letter prepared for that.

Google is a very big public space now. They've got Adwords rules, yet certain things slip by somehow...

thanks guys for shining light on this.

Silly
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