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The end of pay per click advertising as we know it?
Rarely does the sombre world of internet marketing make it into primetime news, but that changed this week with the court case between Marks & Spencer and Interflora. Interflora are suing Marks and Spencer for buying pay-per-click advertising on the adword of Interflora and various miss-spellings around this. This challenges a common, but ethically dubious area that could see the real losers not being Marks and Spencer but that modern leviathan Google.
This move follows a ruling earlier in 2009 that found Google was not infringing on the trademark name of Louis Vuitton by allowing adwords on their name and miss-spellings around this. This latest move is a case that could have huge implications for the multi-billion pound industry of internet marketing.
A little bit of Google research tells me that the cost of the adword of Interflora is only an estimated £0.90 compared to the pretty expensive £3.08 for a phrase such as “cheap flowers locally.” It is easy to see the business sense for Marks and Spencer and shows the importance of well thought out keywords to make the most out of an advertising budget.
It’s clear to see this practice of riding on the coattails of other companies can be execrable if your company are the coat tail that is being ridden on but personally I think that Interflora should lose the case and the practice should remain. The only issue that I see is if people think that they are going to the Interflora site when they are in fact on Marks and Spencer but that seems like a pretty unlikely occurrence. Otherwise, we have a slippery slope of impeding potential competition which the economy is built upon. Personally I say all power to the clever internet marketers!
