EspañolDear Beepers,
Today we want to share a reflection with you.
The dilemma of legality in the field of online advertising is a very delicate subject. The boundaries that separate one side from the other are not clear and we continue in the struggle to make advertising a better tool.
Lately, we have witnessed a peculiar case of advertising in Adwords. Searching for “livebeep” in Google search, you will see a comparative advertisement of a competitor of us. It hasn’t just compared to LiveBeep; but also to Zopim, LiveChat and other similar competitors in the industry.
In Spain, comparative advertising is illegal unless you provide a real fact. For example, in the orange juice market is unlawful to say that you are better than your competitor with no real data but it’s legal to say that your juices contain ten oranges per bottle while your competitor uses only five (of course, it must be truthful!).
However, in the field of Google AdWords, the thing is more complicated. When we saw our “LiveBeep” in the competitor’s add, we doubt about the good use of their advertising policy and we started to investigate. It turns out that according to Google AdWords policy, using a competitor’s brand as a keyword for your ads is permitted, if that brand does not appear in the add.
But if your brand is used as keyword and also appears explicitly in your competitor’s ad, you can complain it to Google Services Complain Form.
So, whether you are acting like this or not, remember that before having a conflict, there are more creative solutions to convince new customers. And don’t forget that instead of making war, it is always better to make love. (づ￣ 3￣)づ
With love,
The LiveBeep Team
