Namestake.com Unveils Free Ad Monitoring Tool

Trademark and intellectual property firm Thomson & Thomson (T&T) introduced a tool to help marketers monitor and protect the integrity of their brand names in conjunction with the common practice of keyword purchases on search engines.

The free tool, Bannerstake, is designed to provide users with a display of the banner advertisements associated with a keyword purchased on each of the major search engines.

Bannerstake can also be used to gather intelligence about the keyword purchases of competitors. Bannerstake is available immediately from T&T’s namestake.comservice.

In the case of keyword purchases on major search engines, any given company can ensure that their banner advertising is served up in association with a competitor’s brand or trademark, the company said. For example, AT&T could may purchase the keyword “sprint” on all major search engines unbeknownst to rival Sprint, causing confusion for users and even potential customer attrition.

T&T said that intellectual property issues must be considered when forming standards for the online advertising industry.

“Companies spend millions of dollars creating and propagating their trademark and brand names, yet competitors can virtually steal another company’s identity on the Web,” said Tom Barrett, vice president, Internet commerce at Thomson & Thomson. “T&T has created Bannerstake to help companies vested in online advertising and promotion protect their brands from the practice of costly misrepresentation online.”

Bannerstake works much like a search engine, allowing users to type in a word and then returns a display of the banner advertisements that have been purchased on each of the search engines associated with that same word. When a user wants to find information associated with a brand, they may be served up banners advertisements associated with a competitor.

T&T’s namestake.com also offers a real-time online screening service that enables businesses to establish unique and memorable electronic identities.