Sponsored Links – an opportunity and a threat to your brand

21666662780_27f0e79d81_bTitle : Adwords – Author : Christophe Benoit – Photo : licence CC BY 2.0 – www.tyseo.net

What is a “Sponsored Link”?

It’s a paid advertisement in the form of a hypertext link that shows up on search results pages. The ads are typically for products and services that are generally or very specifically related to the keywords in the search query.

The most well known sponsored links, Google Adwords, is an advertising service offered by Google for businesses wanting to display ads on the search engine and its advertising network. Businesses set a budget for advertising and pay when people click the ads.

“Google Adwords, is an advertising service offered by Google for businesses wanting to display ads on the search engine and its advertising network.”

What appears on your screen when you use an online search engine?

Results returned by a Search Engine typically fall into 2 categories:

  • Sponsored links (adwords): The customer bids on keywords and the advert (usually a small amount of text and a hyperlink) is displayed in a priority position, but only if the searched keywords match those that have been purchased by the advertiser.
  • Organic search listing: The results in this listing are based upon the relevance of the content on websites that have been referenced by the search engine being used.

On Google’s search results page, the two types of results are displayed differently

  • Sponsored links (adwords) are posted at the top of the list of results with the heading “AD”
  • Organic results are displayed in an order that depends upon how well they match the search query.

google_linksThe criteria taken into account by Google in order to display sponsored links are the same as organic listings in addition to taking into account the geographic location of the searcher.

Adwords can be purchased on a specific geographical area (a continent, country, region or city). Google uses the IP address of the computer on which the search request is being submitted to determine which sponsored results to return.

“Google designed Adwords to be a fully automated service that facilitates the selection of keywords and advert creation.”

Google’s Adwords service

The search engine that is targeted the most by unauthorised practices is Google that, for scalability reasons, designed Adwords to be a fully automated service that facilitates the selection of keywords and advert creation.

Given that, in the last quarter of 2014, sales of Google Adwords were estimated to be $10.50 bn on a net total revenue of $16.96 for the year, we can better understand the importance of this service.

“Google is acting only to host the advert on its advertising network and therefore its responsibility is limited.”

In order to avoid abuse, it is essential that the advert which appears after having typed a search term allows the normal internet user to know whether the Adword, which is promoting products or service, belongs to the brand owner, is a business linked to the brand or a third party organisation. It sits with the advertiser to choose one or more keywords, which determine when the advert is displayed. Therein lies the subtlety of Adword definition.

In this case, Google is acting only to host the advert on its advertising network and therefore its responsibility is limited with respect to inappropriate or adverts linking to counterfeit goods. Indeed, to determine the liability of a search engine, a judge must look at the degree of automation in order to determine whether the role of the operator   is neutral or not. If there is no control of stored data, liability of the search engine operator cannot be proven.

Various court rulings have declare that Google was not a counterfeiter despite proposing keywords, which reproduce distinctive marks (including registered trademarks) by storing and displaying adverts based on keywords. According to the courts, Google does not use these Keywords “in its own business communications”. That is to say, that Google makes keywords available to third parties but does not use that in its own publicity.

Court cases related to Adwords

With most Pay-Per-Click (PPC) programs on search engines, it is easy to buy competitors’ brand names as a keywords. For ethical reasons, this practice is not recommended. However, some less scrupulous companies do not hesitate.

Internet abuse, such as traffic diversion, cybersquatting, copycat website and counterfeiting products and services are still widespread on the Internet. However, on sponsored links, brand hijacking remains the most prevalent.

“On sponsored links, brand hijacking and traffic diversion are the most common forms of abuse.”

Brand hijacking can take two forms:

  • An advertiser buys a registered trademark as a keyword in order to have its adverts displayed when Internet users are searching for a particular brand
  • An advertiser places the brand in the text of its sponsored link advert which appears prominently on the search engine results page

These infractions have resulted in a number of well-publicised court cased where the definition of an Adword was recalled, such as:

These cases demonstrate the importance of the presentation of the advert so that it does not reproduce, in any way, a trademark registered by a third party in the Advert. In doing so it must not deceive the average consumer of the essential representation and functioning of the mark (as a function of its origin, as a function of its promotion, as a function of the investment in and reputation of the mark).

In the face of these very real threats, what steps should brand owners take?

It is essential that a brand owner files one or more trademarks for their brand. In order that proof of registration can be submitted in any complaint to the search engine or Advertising Network provider or in launching a legal action.

“Recent court cases reinforce the importance of presenting an advert so that it does not reproduce, in any way, a third party registered trademark.”

Reduction of brand risk is all about speed. It is as much about speed of detecting an infringement or fraudulent practice as it is about selecting the appropriate remedial action.

It is therefore important to actively monitor sponsored links for infringements rather than waiting to be made aware of an infringement by a disgruntled prospective customer who has purchased a counterfeit product in error.

Monitoring of Adwords should be a part of a multi-layered brand protection programme that is right for your business. Such a programme may include some or all of the following elements: Trademark monitoring, domain name monitoring, website discovery, search engine monitoring, content monitoring, sponsored link discovery, social network monitoring, and affiliate control.

“Monitoring of Adwords should be a component in a multi-layered brand protection programme that is constructed for your particular business needs.”

Building a brand protection programme that fits the needs and risk profile of the brand puts you in control of threats to your brand and allows you to respond with an appropriate level of rapidity and robustness.

If you have discovered a brand infringement on a Sponsored link network, it is important to know that it is possible to request that the hosting network remove adverts that misrepresent or use identical or near identical terms contained in a registered trademark. If your brand is suffering from widespread infringement and abuse such activities can be outsourced to specialist online brand protection which can handle as much or as little of the brand protection operation as the brand owner desires, from a simple detection service to a full suite of detection, analysis and enforcement capabilities.

“Building a brand protection programme that fits the needs and risk profile of your brand puts you in control of threats to your brand and allows you to respond with an appropriate level of rapidity and robustness.”

Why are Dot Brands dragging their feet?

Ok so here’s the thing, we’re over 2 years into the new gTLD rollout now, a new era of the Internet, and everything seems to be going swimmingly…. Or is it?

On the face of it, momentum is building. Over 16 million domain names registered in the past 2 years and 60% of them would still have been available under a .com e.g. nameshield.website and its .com equivalent nameshieldwebsite.com. That’s great because it means that New gTLD domain names are being registered instead of the equivalent .com.

But there is still one thing lacking, something I have been quite vocal about in the past, and that is the fact that very few people actually know that there has been a fundamental shift in the naming infrastructure on the Internet.

To put in another way – the general public don’t know about new gTLDs.

Two years down the line and society is still living in the dot com age and will continue to do so until the .BRAND applicants start to use their gTLDs in their marketing, promotional and operational activities.

“WWW, shhhh, dot com, dot org.”

                      Dr. Evil, Austin Powers Goldmember 2002

What has changed in 14 years?

A new .brand of concern

Here is where things start to get a bit more worrying. Of the 589 .BRAND applications received, 558 of them have signed their ICANN contracts, 289 of them have been delegated and are live on the Internet but only 64 of them are in active use and most of those still redirect to the corporate homepage, usually a .COM!

One of the most prolific .BRAND registrants is Bradesco (a Brazilian Bank) and that has an underwhelming 90 .bradesco names under management. Despite this poor showing, it is the banking sector which is leading the way. BNP Paribas, for example, has been very active promoting its .bnpparibas domain extension e.g www.histoire.bnpparibas and www.mabanque.bnpparibas

www.Epic.Fail?

One notable, and unfortunately a rather embarrassing, example of how the .BRANDs should be promoting their domain extensions is www.booking.com which spent a fortune on its highly successful booking.yeah advertising campaign.booking.yeah-pr-still-5

The booking.yeah campaign is a shining beacon to .BRAND owners, lighting the way with a clear, concise and powerful example on how to use your new gTLD to maximum effect.

Unfortunately, no-one thought to inform the Booking.com marketing department that they could actually own the .YEAH domain extension and so this multi-million dollar advertising campaign, which is centred around a really great and very memorable domain name ‘booking.yeah’, does not and cannot resolve to a website because no one actually applied for .YEAH.

use it or lose it!

The clock is ticking for those that own a .BRAND. Not simply because there is a time limit before the registry has to be operational, nor because domain extensions have to be operated for a minimum of 10 years, but because there will undoubtedly be another round of applications.

At present owners of a .BRAND are in a privileged competitive position online when compared to counterparts which failed to apply for a .BRAND. For example, Nike owns .NIKE whereas Adidas did not apply for .ADIDAS.

There is a limited window of opportunity to steal a march on the competition in a big way by ushering in the Not Com era.

.BRAND owners know that while they procrastinate, dither and generally do nothing with their expensive and highly valuable Internet asset they are frittering away the opportunity to put clear water between themselves and their competitors online.

So why then aren’t more .BRAND owners rushing to promote their new internet address?

If I’m honest, I believe it is because to date, the champions in the majority of .BRANDs applicants have been those that understand and are responsible for the legal, technical and risk reduction benefits of owning and operating a Top Level Domain rather than the outward facing sales, marketing and strategic positioning benefits that operating a .BRAND can bring.

In my experience, when the Sales and Marketing functions truly understand what you can actually do with a .BRAND, when it is closely aligned with marketing campaigns and business development strategies, the real power of the Not Com era becomes blindingly obvious.

Andy Churley,
CMO Nameshield Group

Car Brands: are they taking a leading role in the new Internet?

A ‘plethora’ is defined as a “large or excessive amount of something” and is usually followed by the qualifier “of.” Car manufacturers certainly fall into that category, as I found out recently when looking at replacing my worn-out old jalopy.8992635580_89a79ce84b_n

A plethora can also be used to describe domain extension, with the advent of new gTLDs (where the term after the final ‘dot’ can be almost anything) there is certainly a plethora of those nowadays! This naturally led me to pose the question “How many of one plethora is a part of the other plethora?”

So, after comparing the complete list of new gTLD applicants against the complete list of car manufacturers we find a surprising result …40!! Yes 40!

If BMW is an indicator of what is to come in the evolution of the automotive industry online (with its innovative new .Brand websites, notably www.next100.bmw) other car brands have already pulled the plug. Take, for example GMC which, for reasons known only to itself, pulled the plug on 5 applications. While the French car industry did not submit a single application, at least they didn’t withdraw any!

The list of new gTLD applications for auto brands is as follows:

  • .SEAT
  • .AUDI
  • .VOLKSWAGEN
  • .BUGATTI
  • .LAMBORGHINI
  • .大众汽车 (“Volkswagon” in Chinese)
  • .FORD
  • .LINCOLN
  • .CHRYSLER
  • .DODGE
  • .JEEP
  • .RAM (application status ‘on hold’)
  • .FIAT
  • .ALFAROMEO
  • .MASERATI
  • .LANCIA
  • .FERRARI
  • .ABARTH
  • .BENTLEY
  • .BUICK (application withdrawn)
  • .CADILLAC (application withdrawn)
  • .CHEVROLET (application withdrawn)
  • .CHEVY (application withdrawn)
  • .GMC (application withdrawn)
  • .DATSUN
  • .NISSAN
  • .INFINITI
  • .HONDA
  • .HYUNDAI
  • .JAGUAR
  • .LANDROVER
  • .KIA
  • .LEXUS
  • .TOYOTA
  • .MINI
  • .BMW
  • .MITSUBISHI
  • .SUZUKI
  • .TATAMOTORS
  • .VOLVO

A little stir of the pot

Other related generic internet extensions exist (which don’t belong to the car brands) such as .CAR – .CARS – .AUTO – .AUTOS – .CARINSURANCE – .RACING – .LIMO et .GOLF (presumably related to the sport rather than the VW car).

There are also a number of auto related .Brands such as .DUNLOP – .GOODYEAR, as well as auto parts makers such as UCONNECT, .MOPAR et .SRT.

All in all, the auto industry is well represented for their online future. Far more so than many other industries.

So, when the brands, whether they are car manufacturers or not, begin to use these domain extensions as a core element of their online presence, we can all hope that other new gTLD owners such as .NIKE follow their lead and we can all leave the ‘Dot Com’ era behind us and welcome in the ‘Not Com’ epoch.

As for the absent French car manufacturers, there is nothing to do but prepare for the next application round. But make sure you start your preparations now!!

What has become of the big dreams of the big .BRANDs ?

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In 2012, ICANN received 643 applications for restricted use generic Top Level Domains extensions by brand owners. Recently, a surprising proportion of these, so called, .BRAND applications have been withdrawn, often resulting in the loss of the entire application fee ($185,000).

Why have these brand owners taken the decision to relinquish control over their very own piece of the Internet infrastructure? Is this a tactical response to a strategic direction or are they simply lacking the ideas and domain name registry experience to make the most of this investment? Jean-Francois Vanden Eynde, head of registry services at Nameshield investigates.

It is important to acclimatise the internet public to the use of the new .BRAND extensions since little has been done by ICANN to promote the overall new gTLD concept

The new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) program has been a long time coming. And, from late 2013 onwards, new domain extensions have been live on the Internet, going largely unnoticed by the general public. At the time of writing, 548 new domain extensions have been delegated (the domain extension resolves in the root zone of the internet and is therefore live), only 96 of these are .BRAND applications, but these already include some well-known brands such as .cartier, .marriott, .nissan, .bnpparisbas and .bbc.

Note: When a domain extension is delegated it must immediately host a website on nic.extension (e.g. try typing nic.cartier or nic.marriott into the address bar of a web-browser).

Of the 643 .BRAND applications 56 have already been withdrawn by brand owners including some household names such as Amazon, General Motors (.chevy), Bloomingdales, Hasbro International Inc. (.transformers) and ProMark Brands Inc. (.Heinz and .Ketchup). It is expected that a greater number of .BRAND applicants will withdraw before the program reaches its conclusion, but what reasons do Brand owners have for turning their backs on an investment that runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars?

While, in the application phase, there was no shortage of experts offering to write a new gTLD application on behalf of a brand owner, those same experts seem to disappear when it comes to the implementation phase.

1. Competitive advantage mitigation

It was a well known fact, that often went unmentioned, that some brand owners applied for New gTLDs simply to ensure that their competition did not have a clear run at the domain extension and thereby gain competitive advantage.

If the completion does not apply and, despite being the applicant, you do not want to use the domain extension yourself, then an early withdrawal will reduce your losses and ensure that none of your competitors get to use the domain extension unless they apply for it in a future round. This type of strategy has been used by a number of brand owners in particular for generic terms.

2. Prevailing objections

During the application process, there was a period where those who had a grievance against an application could file an objection on one of four grounds. If the objector prevailed against the applicant then the application would have to be withdrawn.

For example, Ralph Lauren was forced to withdraw its application for .polo after an objection from the United States Polo Association, Inc. despite having well established trademarks for the term.

There are, in fact, very few people in the world who actually have the experience to implement and run a gTLD registry. This lack of know-how can make some companies revisit their original ‘green light’ decision.

They say that the only constant is change and its safe to say that nowadays corporations change their strategic direction and their personnel with alarming rapidity.

If key supporters of a company’s new gTLD program leave the business then it can quickly lead to the failure of a .BRAND particularly if this happens at the very top.

4. Lack of experience

One of the things that has become clear as the new gTLD program has unfolded is that, while in the application phase there was no shortage of experts offering to write a new gTLD application on behalf of a brand owner, those same experts seem to disappear when it comes to the implementation phase.

There are, in fact, very few people in the world who actually have the experience of implementing and running a gTLD registry. This lack of know-how can make some companies revisit their original decision.

5. Lack of need

Many .BRAND gTLDs will have been applied for defensive reasons without the brand owner considering the use to which a .BRAND new gTLD might be put. Since a new gTLD is really an intangible asset that involves a considerable on-going investment to maintain, it is understandable that some companies may reconsider the need for their own .BRAND gTLD.

6. Lack of ideas

For those of us that have worked in the domain name industry for a while, the idea of owning a piece of internet infrastructure to do with what you will has a considerable attraction. That is because Internet infrastructure is our business. For most brand owners, it is not. While there are few enough people on the planet that understand how to implement and run a gTLD registry, there are even fewer who know how to align a registry to support the needs of a single brand. Similarly, those who understand the needs of the brand usually do not fully understand how a .BRAND gTLD can help them realise corporate strategy.

What is noticeable by its absence is that to date very few of the .BRAND gTLDs, that have been delegated, are actually being used in anger in marketing messages, email or in fact online. The thing that will change this industry and bring us out of the .com era and into the “age of .anything” is for .BRAND tlds to actually start using their unique internet assets. Imagine what will happen when Nike starts using its .NIKE gTLD in television advertising or McDonalds starts putting its .MCD web-addresses on all of its collateral.

Before unleashing a new gTLD, brand owners must make sure that existing marketing campaigns, message infrastructure and website traffic and, above all, revenues are not adversely affected.

 

Less .haste more .speed

Unlike open registries, whose domain names are available to anyone, a .BRAND registry is under much less commercial pressure to launch. This is one of the principal reasons that the world is yet to see much movement in the .BRAND gTLD space. Another potential reason is that many .BRAND owners seem to view delegation as the end of something rather than the beginning of a new internet era for them.

Before unleashing a new gTLD, brand owners must make sure that existing marketing campaigns, message infrastructure and website traffic and, above all, revenues are not adversely affected. For a multinational brand there is a whole host of internal matters to address, including internal education programs, marketing style guides, email addresses and footers and effect on corporate culture.

Some brand owners may consider that this considerable upheaval is not worth the effort at this stage and may continue to use and promote their existing domain name infrastructure for some time to come.

However, brand owners should not dismiss, through lack of understanding, the long-term benefits that a new gTLD infrastructure can bring to their business. Certainly, careful consideration should be given to maximising the use, to which their new online intellectual property asset can be put.

 

It’s better to .Use it! don’t .Lose it!

What might brand owners do with their gTLD as soon as it’s delegated? There are a number of options that brand owners can choose to implement with their new domain extension such as:

1. Park it

Applicants who applied for defensive reasons will typically park their domain extension and register very few domains. This can be likened to purchasing an expensive Ferrari and leaving it in the garage. While this is a valid and understandable option, given the lack of available expertise within brand owners of operating Internet infrastructure, it does nothing to capitalise on a potential competitive advantage against competitors that have not applied for a new gTLD. For example, Nike successfully applied for .Nike whereas Adidas and Reebok chose not to apply. Nike now has a window of opportunity to exploit this competitive advantage.

2. Point it.

The very least a band owner should do is use this new and comparatively low cost Internet naming infrastructure to maximise traffic to its existing websites. Creating keyword domain names and forwarding the corresponding traffic to the brand owner’s main website costs little and may generate increased business and will certainly assist in search engine rankings.

3. Promote it

Some brand owners are already building their online corporate marketing strategy, if not their sales strategy, around their new .BRAND extension. They are using it to deliver important marketing messages about their values, culture and ethics to help reinforce the credibility of their brands. These informational pages can be placed on, what in .com terms would have been, premium domain names .

For example, Nike might host a website showing its strategy for environmental sustainability on sustainability.nike or ethically sourced products on fairtrade.nike or its focus on innovation and development on innovation.nike. If a brand owner wanted to do the same thing on the equivalent .com domain name they could be paying millions of dollars just for the domain name alone, if it was for sale at all. Using the equivalent .BRAND domain name should rank the site highly with the search engines and cost less than $5.

While no dates are set in stone for the opening of the next instalment of new gTLDs, brand owners and .BRAND owners alike should start preparing now.

It is important to acclimatise the internet public to the use of the new .BRAND extensions since little has been done to promote the overall new gTLD concept to the public. We saw elements of this recently at the Football world cup with McDonalds promoting www.mcd.com, which is only one step away from its .MCD extension.

Once the base elements of a new gTLD online strategy are in place, .BRAND owners should start focusing their Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts and part of their Pay Per Click (PPC) budgets to their new domain extension. However, it is important to note that, while PPC can achieve rapid results it can consume large budgets and it is important that efforts to promote any new .BRAND extension should not get impede or add confusion to any existing online campaigns. SEO campaigns generally show gradual improvements over the space of 6 – 12 months, so it is important to start these campaigns as soon as possible.

While no dates are set in stone for the opening of the next instalment of new gTLDs, brand owners and .BRAND owners alike should start preparing now.

Those .BRAND owners who already have their gTLD delegated should not sit idle and let their competitive advantage disappear.

Brand owners who are considering applying in the next application round should start their planning now to ensure that when they finally get their gTLDs delegated they are ready to implement their marketing plans. And, brand owners who have no intention of applying for a new gTLD should still take stock because without a doubt this brand new namespace will affect their naming strategies, their domain name portfolios and their marketing messages.

Note: the original article, published in IPPRO magazine can be found here

Jean_Francois_Vanden_Eynde

Jean-Francois Vanden Eynde

Head of registry services

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