Advertising campaigns are an excellent tool for your business to gain traction. It is common for businesses to use their business name in the back end of advertising campaigns, and increasingly popular to use competitors\u2019 trade marks in the same way to generate new business. However, using a competitor\u2019s registered trade mark for your own benefit can be a contentious topic. This article will discuss the legalities of using trade marked words in advertising campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A registered trade mark<\/a> gives its owner the exclusive rights to its use, so you might assume that you cannot use trade marked words in an advertising campaign. However, this is not necessarily always the case. You can use others\u2019 trade marks in keyword bidding for advertising services, such as Google Ads campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, Google Ads displays both organic and paid search results. When a potential consumer searches for something in Google, ads paid for by businesses bidding on keywords will join organic results at the top of the page.<\/p>\n A company selling mugs might place a bid on \u2018buy mugs\u2019 or \u2018cheap mugs\u2019 or \u2018gift mugs\u2019 and their business name as keywords. This would result in their advertisement appearing as a sponsored result when someone searches these words.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n It is possible for you to use a competitor business\u2019 trade marks as keywords when buying advertisements to increase the chances of a consumer finding your business. This means that in theory, Samsung can bid on \u2018iPhone\u2019 as a keyword.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although you can use a competitor business\u2019 registered trade mark as a keyword when bidding on keywords, you cannot use the trade mark in the advertisement itself, as this would be visible to the consumer. Using the Samsung and Apple example above, Samsung could purchase the keyword \u2018iPhone\u2019 but would not be able to use the term \u2018iPhone\u2019 in their advertisement. Doing so might result in trade mark infringement<\/a> and other claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n Continue reading this article below the form\n <\/i>\n<\/a>\nUnderstanding Advertising Policies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n