Google Trademark Bidding - Two Months Later

Now that the dust has settled on Google's controversial changes to trademark protection in the UK, we've completed a piece of research to see how the search landscape has changed.

We took a list of 100 top brands across different sectors and looked at the search results page for searches on the brand name itself.  I was expecting a scene of carnage as brands bid against each other in a scramble for valuable traffic.  The reality was very different - in fact the remarkable thing really was how little paid search is happening around key brand terms.

• Almost half of all brands - including companies like HSBC, Tesco and Marks and Spencer - are not bidding on their own brand terms.
• 14% of our surveyed brands showed no paid search activity.
• Bidding by direct competitors on brand terms is largely restricted to just two sectors: finance and travel.

Finance is one of the most competitive sectors - but even here, massive brands like HSBC, NatWest and LloydsTSB have essentially opted out of Google Adwords for their key brand terms.

The full white paper on Trademark Bidding on Google is now online.