Imported From Detroit: Search Advertising

At least one advertiser piggybacked on the success of a rival’s Super Bowl TV ad.

A Google search for “Imported From Detroit Chrysler,” the title of a popular Super Bowl ad featuring rapper Eminem, turned up a paid search ad from Chevy on Monday.

So, instead of finding this memorable Chrysler TV ad:

 

 

You would get an ad leading you to “official Chevrolet” videos including this one for Al’s Chevy dealership:

“Competitive brand keyword bidding in Google (where it is allowed by their trademark policy in many countries) is fairly common,” said Kevin Lee, CEO of search consultancy Didit, in an e-mail interview. “However for many competitors there is an unstated agreement not to bid on each other’s keywords because the only one getting rich is Google.”

He added: “One thing to keep in mind however is that quality scores for competitive brand ads can be fairly low, requiring significant bids to get the ads high in the results.” A quality score is a formula used by search engines to determine an ad’s rank and cost per click.