Hey, You, Get Off of My Name!
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Written By Noah Mallin | June 3, 2008 | Share This
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Bo Diddley, the pioneering rock n’ roll genius who died yesterday knew a thing or two about marketing and branding. Consider this: Ellas McDaniel re-dubbed himself as Diddley, had his first hit record with a song called “Bo Diddley” (the first of many times he would work his new name into a song title and lyrics) and made sure that the ubiquitous shave-and-a-haircut beat that was his trademark was referred to far and wide as “the Bo Diddley beat.” The man was SEO before there were any E’s to S.
Now imagine if you popped Diddley’s name into your search engine of choice and the results page featured a big ol’ ad that said “Bo Diddley Music” with a click- through to Chuck Berry’s site. Though Search Engines frown on this when the name is under copyright it does happen and in some cases is part of an overall marketing strategy.
Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article that focuses on the naughty folks who contravene the search engine’s ban on using another company’s copyrighted name as a paid keyword. The accompanying vid however deals with a slightly different and murkier issue, perhaps because author Emily Steel is talking to someone from a company that hopes to get paid for protecting your good brand name from being sullied. Here it is in living Murdoch-vision:
The general practice of buying up terms, phrases and even copyrighted names associated with a competitor is not uncommon, though the effectiveness is open to debate. If your brand is the victim of this kind of keyword jacking it’s a terrible scourge. On the other hand, if your brand has used it to checkmate a rival’s campaign, it’s flippin’ genius.
A good example of this can be found in Reprise Media’s own typically thorough (excuse us while we plug ourselves) Superbowl Search Marketing Scorecard from this past February. CareerBuilder did a series of ads based on the theme of “Follow your heart.” The clever folks at Monster.com bought that phrase and other similar ones and even integrated it into their online ad copy. No doubt many job seekers who may not have been aware of Monster found that they offered an alternative to CareerBuilder that met their needs.
Whether or not you are using someone else’s brand name or campaign is maybe less important than why you’re doing it, and where you’re sending people once they click. Sending a bunch of folks who are looking for Bo Diddley to the Chuck Berry product only works if the landing page you send them to doesn’t make them feel tricked and hostile. Sending them to a page that says “If you like Bo Diddley, check out Chuck Berry’s CD” and includes the ability to sample some tunes could actually create a positive experience for the user.
This also can have some bearing on the price advertisers pay for their ads. Most search engines incorporate landing page content into their quality score – the algorithm that is used to determine the price they’ll pay in the auction. In fact Google makes this very clear in their Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines for AdWords. If your landing page doesn’t feature content that’s relevant to the keyword you’re buying? Prices will go up and in some cases your ads will even be deactivated. Not the kind of ROI most advertisers want.
Ultimately, the question of whether or not companies should be able to buy competitive brand terms comes down to intent – deception vs. comparison:
- Brand comparison is a crucial and age-old tool in the marketing toolbox – saying “if you like x, try Y” creates instant context for people. Think classic campaigns like the Pepsi Challenge and Snapple’s “We’re number 2.”
- But when users click on an ad, they’re expecting relevant content on the other end. If you don’t deliver, you may end up damaging your relationship with your user, and that kind of negative impression can be very hard to erase.
Topics: Blogging, Google, Investment, M&A, Music, SEM: Paid Inclusion, SEM: Paid Search, SEO, Search: Image, Search: Local, Social Media, Tagging |
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