Update to Canadian, UK and Ireland ad text trademark policy - Why is this relevant for you?

Do you have AdWords clients who target the UK, Canada or Ireland? We recently announced that as of September 14th, we will allow some advertisers who target these markets to use third party trademarks in their ad text even if they don’t own that trademark or have explicit approval from the trademark owner to use it.

This policy was first implemented last year in the U.S. in an effort to provide better ads and a higher quality experience for our users. We believe that this change has helped both our users and advertisers by improving the usefulness of text ads on Google.com and across partner sites. For example, resellers of computers have been able to highlight the actual brands they sell in their ad text making their ads even more specific and relevant for users.

What does this mean for you? As an example, if your Australian client has a campaign targeting the UK for a store that sells Billabong and Roxy T-shirts, you may be able to use the words 'Billabong' and 'Roxy' in your ads in certain circumstances.

Separately, we've also announced an update to our policy to enable advertisers across Europe to select trademarks as keywords. For example, if a user searches for a car brand name that is trademarked, relevant and helpful third party and competitor ads can show -- such as car review sites, car mechanics, and second hand dealers.

This update will also occur on September 14 and brings Europe in line with the trademark policy that already exists in the U.S. and most of the world today.

Please note that these policies do not currently apply to ads targeted to Australia and New Zealand. For a full description of the trademark policy in your country, please check out the AdWords Help Centre.

For more detail on our updated trademark policy in Canada, the UK and Ireland, please visit the FAQ in our Help Center.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team
This is a partial cross post from the Inside AdWords Blog