NEWS •HILLTOP HIGHLIGHTS
Search and Annoy
When web users search for brand names, the results often include competitors
DRAKE SOREY
Shopping for a new pair of jeans? Making airline reservations? If you are like most modern consumers, you simply type a few keywords into a search engine, and up pops a long list of choices. Click the link at the top of the list, and it will take you to the product’s website. Or not.
10 •
Spring 2016
It turns out that online consumers don’t always land exactly where they intend. The reason, according to researchers at the McDonough School of Business, lies in sales tactics employed by the multibillion-dollar advertising industry, which is the lifeblood of search companies. The findings are revealed in a Trademark Reporter study, “Using Trademarks as Keywords: Empirical Evidence of Confusion,” conducted by Ronald Goodstein, associate professor of marketing, and Gary Bamossy, clinical professor of marketing, and published last year in Trademark Reporter. “Search engine providers are able to present users —Ronald Goodstein with search Associate Professor of results that Marketing are not always optimized to provide the ‘best’ information to consumers, but are calibrated instead to maximize revenue for the search engine company,” the study states. The problem is that Google, for example, sells keywords to advertisers that include generic words and phrases, as well as ones trademarked by competing companies. So if you search for “Levi’s,” your results
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These ads are confusing to consumers. They think they’re getting one company but are actually getting someone else.”
msb.georgetown.edu