Bidding on brands on Google. How does it work in practice?

[Rupert]

Just trying to work out how the bidding works on google PPC.

If I seach for "Amazon" there are no bidders. If I search for "Amazon Hat", then I still only get that funny internet site "Amazon.co.uk"

If I go to "Shopping" then there are people selling amazon hats, but are they blocked from bidding on "Amazon", or is it not worth their while? They certainly don't rank for the phrase.

"marks and spencer" is the same. You cannot claim to be looking for a "spencer with marks on" really.

However, If I seach for a well known brand such as "diesel" the the world is open to all. 

is it because of the word "diesel" is more generic than Amazon?  What about the river? Or is it just that Amazon are more clued up. with their rights, or Google bow to a big brother?

Any small shop that has a product in the name, seems open for anyone to search on their name.

[Gurtie]

My understanding of it now is that you can advertise on any term including a trademarked one but you can't use the trademark in your ad copy - so you can advertise on the keyword amazon hats with no restrictions, but you may have a battle getting your copy approved if you use Amazon in the copy unless you have written permission from the trademark owner.  This applies whatever the trademark owner does or says to Google in theory.

That said, if there's something genuinely called an 'amazon hat' would Amazon really be able to claim trademark on that?

On Google shopping, you can get a product dissallowed if the product name or description includes a trademarked term, and some of those terms are a bit unhelpful; 'nero' for example which is commonly used as a colour name amongst people unable to just call things what they are in plain english, kicks off the trademark problem.

On claiming your ad is about 1 thing when it actually targets other traffic (the river and not the online store, for example). I believe that might just be possible and practical, if circumstances dictated . But obviously no one here would do anything like that.

[Rupert]

Thx for that clarification Gurtie.  Will miss your insights tonight

I think I am going to start ppc for deisel, at £1.35 per litre.... 

It does rather mean that if you are starting out from scratch, you really don't want a generic naming website, you really do want something brandable...

[jetboy]

Gurtie's on the money. A number of legal firms are pretending that the ongoing Interflora vs Marks & Spencer legal battle has changed things, but it hasn't yet. It's only highlighted that if a competitor is infringing your trademark via PPC, you can take legal action to stop them. Solely bidding on your brand isn't a trademark infringement, it's healthy competition!

I imagine that what you're seeing is a combination of a couple of things:

1. It not being cost effective to bid on 'amazon' if you're selling amazon hats.
2. Amazon having a 'no brand bidding' policy for affiliates. I don't know if this is the case here, but it's common practice, and fits what you're seeing.

The main distinction between 'diesel' and 'amazon' is that Diesel is a product brand, sold through various retailers, whereas Amazon is the brand of a retailer.

Amazon sells everything direct, so (presumably) it isn't in its best interests to have affiliates competing with it on PPC as it just costs them money. As anyone selling Amazon products will have to be an affiliate, it can easily enforce this.

Diesel needs to keep its retail chains sweet as they'll be selling the most Diesel product. As such, it looks like it understands that allowing third-parties to use its brand in ad creative is in its own best interests.

I doubt that Amazon could stop you bidding on 'amazon hats' *if* it was a generic term. They might try though!

[Rupert]

We can talk about it further tonight