Stolen Creative?
|
Written By Reprise Media | November 16, 2005 | Share This
|
|
Cheaters never win, winners never cheat.
Recently this issue came to the forefront when Apple was charged with copying an ad campaign for Lugz.
At Reprise Media this same issue came to mind when one of our clients noticed another company running some creatives that were very similiar (actually, exactly the same) to the ones we were running - word for word. Ah the nerve!
Such a practice is bad for all parties, including the searcher who may be confused by seeing both ads at the same time and cannot differentiate between them.
It can also negatively affect the click-through rate for the client’s campaign, not to mention how upset the client was to find someone else running their creative.
Sure, the competitor may have benefited from running a good creative, but in doing so they have lost their credibility (at least with us and the client, anyway).
But who can you turn to in such a situation? The creative wasn’t copyrighted or trademarked, so Google couldn’t investigate. Suing the competitor wouldn’t be any better. We huffed and puffed, but couldn’t bring the house down.
It’s an industry wide issue of how to protect your assets and who will police the process - search engines, clients or SEM firms? It has to be addressed. In the meantime, let’s keep it clean.
Shaleen Ahmed is a Client Services Manager at Reprise Media.
Topics: SEM: Firms |