Keyword “piggybacking” coming to Mobile Channel?
The Wall Street Journal featured a story on June 3rd regarding the practice of (online search) keyword “piggybacking” in which one brand uses another brand’s (usually a more recognizable brand) name, slogan or trademarked words in THEIR own text ads to drive traffic to their own sites. Advertisers claim the practice still goes unchecked at some of the major search engines even though the search companies, namely Google, have policies against such practices.
Advertisers claim the practice “confuses potential customers and increases the cost of doing business” and they want it cleaned up by Search companies.
Can this become an issue within the Mobile Channel as well? Sure it could. The obvious correlation will be with the Mobile Search players – i.e. JumpTap, Google, Yahoo, Medio and InfoSpace – and how they manage this process within their paid Search processes and systems.
As a Mobile Marketer, I’m a bit more interested to see how “piggybacking” will impact the use of KEYWORD-driven messaging programs especially within emerging self-service mobile messaging solutions. These platforms from companies such as; TextMarks, iVisionMobile, iamota, Mobivity, and Waterfall Mobile (to name a few) allow Clients to essentially select any keyword they desire as long as it conforms to a specific character count and is not already in use on a particular shortcode (which is usually a shared shortcode offered by the platform provider).
You can see where I’m headed here, right? In theory I could set up a Cross-Carrier SMS program on a shared-shortcode on any number of the aforementioned tools using the Keywords HolidayInn, or HoldayInn or HdayInn or HolidayInn7. I then could promote my keyword(s) a variety of different ways to spur some sort of consumer action e.g. send WAP push to trigger WAP page, send SMS/MMS ad, etc.
As I write, I can see where this is more of a trademark infringement issue at play, but nevertheless as mobile keyword usage gains recognition in the U.S. and more publishers and advertisers/marketers embrace the Channel, keywords will be valuable assets that ought to be closely guarded and monitored by all those in the Value Chain.
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June 5th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
In practice, I believe it would depend on the content being delivered from that keyword to determine if it was trademark infringement or an attempt at misleading a consumer.
For example:
Texting ‘holidayinn’ to a shortcode dedicated to directions or price comparison may return a list of different hotels and directions to holidayinn competitors in the area. This however is not considered trademark infringement.
All self-service keyword providers SHOULD 100% have policies against ‘Txtsquatting’ i.e. using a keyword that is trademarked to deliver a alternative misleading message or to sell premium content not related to the mark.
Fortunately, all keyword providers have the ability to turn off any keyword if they find a txtsquatter or abuse is reported. This would render all promotional material to be useless by the textsquatter. In a google world, since you only pay when someone clicks your ad, getting shut off is no big deal since its digital. With Shortcode/Keywords, any printed, televised, recorded radio, or signage promotional material will be rendered useless if your keyword is shut off(this would be a major loss of $ mid-campaign). Therefore I do not think many marketers will take the chance of losing money by txtsquatting.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:54 am
Marketing Direct Mail Marketing Add Link…
I didn’t agree with you first, but last paragraph makes sense for me…