Chris and I have both spouted off on Pontiac's
commercial in which they urge the viewer to "Google Pontiac" in order to learn more about the brand. I asked
what happens when sites that aren't favorable toward Pontiac begin to pop up at the top of the search page, but USA
Today points out a real issue, which is that before all of this Google had allowed Mazda to use the
words"Pontiac" and "Pontiac Solstice" as search terms. The result is that when you type
"Pontiac" into Google you get a bunch of sites about Pontiac, but also ads that compare Mazda's Miata to the
Pontiac Solstice. Pontiac isn't too concerned about it, at least according to the company's marketing director. I'd be
surprised if he was concerned, since the company had to have known things like this would occur if they began to ask
people to research the brand of their own volition.Google Pontiac and learn about Mazda
Chris and I have both spouted off on Pontiac's
commercial in which they urge the viewer to "Google Pontiac" in order to learn more about the brand. I asked
what happens when sites that aren't favorable toward Pontiac begin to pop up at the top of the search page, but USA
Today points out a real issue, which is that before all of this Google had allowed Mazda to use the
words"Pontiac" and "Pontiac Solstice" as search terms. The result is that when you type
"Pontiac" into Google you get a bunch of sites about Pontiac, but also ads that compare Mazda's Miata to the
Pontiac Solstice. Pontiac isn't too concerned about it, at least according to the company's marketing director. I'd be
surprised if he was concerned, since the company had to have known things like this would occur if they began to ask
people to research the brand of their own volition.Reader Comments
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1. I totally agree. Sounds like poor planning on Pontiac's part. If they were going to use that method why not go ahead and create a half-dozen pro-pontiac user sites and bid on PPC results for those sites, thus getting a larger portion of the results page and capturing more traffic and not losing it to competitors...
Posted at 4:37PM on Feb 23rd 2006 by Jon Payne