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Imagine's "google it" campaign

2009 October 22
tags: , ,
by Barry

8722 157741740786 118081615786 2700871 3448268 n1 400x300 Imagine's "google it" campaign

Mass campaign running at the moment from Imagine (Great new website), who are rolling out wimax technology.

So I “googled” WiMax, and obviously enough they are running an AdWords campaign(as are others) – but I’m interested in the actual usage of the phrase “google” as it’s a trademarked term and Google get a little pinicky if using it as a verb, having issued cease and desist in the past.

It’s will be interesting to see if the big G gave approval on it’s usage, as they can be quite vigilant of their trademark usage, possibly as a precautionary to the lessons learned from “Hoover”.

from → Marketing

  • Ciaranmg

    If they're running a sufficiently big PPC campaign on google then I reckon the big G are happy to turn a blind eye to this one. Everybody has a price.

  • barryhand

    I don't know about that Ciaran, it's a fairly uncompetitive keyword, so would be fairly low cost. There's only really been a surge of searches in the last few weeks as well (Google Trends) – http://www.google.com/trends?q=wimax&ctab=0&geo…

  • Ciaranmg

    If they're running a sufficiently big PPC campaign on google then I reckon the big G are happy to turn a blind eye to this one. Everybody has a price.

  • http://twitter.com/paulmcclean paulmcclean

    I think this is a risky ad campaign. People might feel slightly insulted because they're being ordered by some company to look something up on the internet. The ad could be perceived as “Don't know what wimax is? You're an idiot. Get back to me when you've looked it up on Google.”

    I quite like the web site though.

  • barryhand

    I don't know about that Ciaran, it's a fairly uncompetitive keyword, so would be fairly low cost. There's only really been a surge of searches in the last few weeks as well (Google Trends) – http://www.google.com/trends?q=wimax&ctab=0&geo…

  • http://twitter.com/paulmcclean paulmcclean

    I think this is a risky ad campaign. People might feel slightly insulted because they're being ordered by some company to look something up on the internet. The ad could be perceived as “Don't know what wimax is? You're an idiot. Get back to me when you've looked it up on Google.”

    I quite like the web site though.

  • barryhand

    It could certainly imply that, on the other side – it's probably difficult to explain in a poster/billboard why WiMax is the new sliced bread.

    The one thing I do like about this campaign is driving traffic to the website, which has been really well built with good content.

  • barryhand

    It could certainly imply that, on the other side – it's probably difficult to explain in a poster/billboard why WiMax is the new sliced bread.

    The one thing I do like about this campaign is driving traffic to the website, which has been really well built with good content.

  • http://www.primaryposition.com/ David Quaid

    I saw this too and I wouldn't be surprised if one of their competitors wouldn't spot an opportunity here. After all, it is probably a low cost per visit, therefore you could use their URL to mask your own and replace their ad, thus taking their traffic. Google lets companies do this all the time – its very frustrating and I have no idea why they allow two different urls to be used in an ad. But they also only allow one ad with the same visible url, so if they bid an extra 0.05c higher, Imagine's ad wouldn't even show….Risky and not well thought out maybe? Or do they have an internal Google Account Manager to fix it for them?

  • http://twitter.com/BarryHand Barry Hand

    I sent a quick message to – @imagineeurope “Thanks Barry,glad you like it! Google support WiMax all over the world so “Google it” was a perfect way to get our msg out there!”

    Not clear if Google give the green light, but as they're backing WiMax, I presume they're OK with it.

  • http://www.primaryposition.com/ David Quaid

    I saw this too and I wouldn't be surprised if one of their competitors wouldn't spot an opportunity here. After all, it is probably a low cost per visit, therefore you could use their URL to mask your own and replace their ad, thus taking their traffic. Google lets companies do this all the time – its very frustrating and I have no idea why they allow two different urls to be used in an ad. But they also only allow one ad with the same visible url, so if they bid an extra 0.05c higher, Imagine's ad wouldn't even show….Risky and not well thought out maybe? Or do they have an internal Google Account Manager to fix it for them?

  • http://twitter.com/BarryHand Barry Hand

    I sent a quick message to – @imagineeurope “Thanks Barry,glad you like it! Google support WiMax all over the world so “Google it” was a perfect way to get our msg out there!”

    Not clear if Google give the green light, but as they're backing WiMax, I presume they're OK with it.

  • http://www.georgiecasey.com/ Georgie

    Just noticed a billboard on the way home from Galway myself. Wouldn't it be funny for someone to post a completely fabricated 'imagine' diatribe and get it to rank for [wimax]. Anyone with enough juice want to throw a post up and we'll all link to it.

  • http://www.georgiecasey.com/ Georgie

    Just noticed a billboard on the way home from Galway myself. Wouldn't it be funny for someone to post a completely fabricated 'imagine' diatribe and get it to rank for [wimax]. Anyone with enough juice want to throw a post up and we'll all link to it.

  • http://primaryposition.blogspot.com/2009/10/wimax-google-it.html David Quaid

    @topgold's blog was ranking this morning, http://www.insideview.ie/irisheyes/2009/10/wima… and mine ranks in pages form Ireland (given the lack of relevance to wifi my blog has) : http://primaryposition.blogspot.com/2009/10/wim…

  • http://primaryposition.blogspot.com/2009/10/wimax-google-it.html David Quaid

    @topgold's blog was ranking this morning, http://www.insideview.ie/irisheyes/2009/10/wima… and mine ranks in pages form Ireland (given the lack of relevance to wifi my blog has) : http://primaryposition.blogspot.com/2009/10/wim…

  • http://primaryposition.blogspot.com/2009/10/wimax-google-it.html David Quaid

    @topgold's blog was ranking this morning, http://www.insideview.ie/irisheyes/2009/10/wima… and mine ranks in pages form Ireland (given the lack of relevance to wifi my blog has) : http://primaryposition.blogspot.com/2009/10/wim…