“Internet Media Cannibale”, the last edition of the Interactive Marketing Guide to Referencing, highlights this work in regards to intellectual property protection in search engines.
With pioneering efforts in e-Marketing, IC-Agency has created BrandSweeper(TM). This technology allows companies to protect usage of their trademarked brand in search engines, and furthermore reduces the cost associated with sponsored link advertising.
The numerous victims range from every industry, including tourism, luxury items and consumer goods, which have fallen prey to positionsquatting. The abusive use of brand names in a keyword driven campaign hosted by search engines, is constantly growing. By exploiting the popularity of the brand names through grey market practices including counterfeit and skewed information, the premise of the link redirect is to divert traffic intended for another site. With so many bidders, the keyword costs will inevitably increase.
In this third quarter, Google announced an increase of 84% in keyword sales compared to last year’s numbers. This helped trademarked keyword sales.
However, certain brands were advised judiciously to turn this potential threat into an opportunity by key players, like former E-Business Manager for the International Marketing Department for Nestle Nespresso, Frederic Levy. “We succeeded in protecting the Nespresso name on Google while establishing a regulatory policy which enabled us to personally authorize only approved retailers to purchase keywords linked to the brand.”
By evaluating redirected traffic, IC-Agency supplies the client with an in-depth analysis spanning over a variety of markets. Corrective actions can then be taken to limit the purchase of these brand names to their owners and authorized retail affiliates.
“With fewer bidders, the prices quickly find their natural level. The savings from international campaigns are quite impressive and can be translated into tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of Euros saved. With the sponsored links cleared of unauthorized redirects, all prospects find the official sites,” explains Marc-Olivier Peyer, Jurist & head of the Innovation Department of IC-Agency.
