Buying Adwords Isn't Quite The Same Thing As Striking...

from the collective-advertising? dept

Thu, Feb 28th 2008 12:46am — Mike Masnick

Forget collective bargaining or a sitdown strike, it appears that Britain's largest private-sector union is engaging in... well... buying some Google ads in protest. The Times Online tries to make this out to be an alternative to a strike or a walkout, and even implies that buying a few Adwords on Google to show their displeasure with the retailer Marks & Spencer would have a similar impact. It's difficult to see why buying some ads on the Marks & Spencer ad is going to have much of an impact at all on any negotiations with the union. The article is actually fairly weak -- not explaining clearly that the union is just buying ads that anyone could buy. It makes it sound as if the union is doing something special to have its complaints seen on Google. It also doesn't mention that M&S could just outbid the union to get a higher ranking in the ads and to explain its side of the story. It is nice that the group is trying alternative means to get its point across, but it hardly seems worth comparing it to a strike, as the article implies.

Filed Under: advertisements, adwords, labor protest, strikes
Companies: google, marks & spencer

6 Comments

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ReallyEvilCanine, 28 Feb 2008 @ 3:16am

Answer
I rang the union for you and this is what they had to say:
We have a cunning plan which involves the purchase of advertisements using numerous key words on the search engine sites so that a box with our name appears whenever anyone searches for terms which might lead them to the target site, including "Marks", "Spencer", "Sparks", "Marksnsparks", "crap" and "y-fronts", are entered. In this way we appear to the 99.724% of the population who don't actually click on the ads as an industry group which sponsors and supports M&S and their positions. Why yes, Mr. Fuzzydimple, there is a hatstand on the coach. I'll attend to in immediately after extracting the badger from...
And that's the point I hung up the phone.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2008 @ 6:26am

complaining via Google
what will this be called?

Ragoogle
GoogleBitching
Badwords
...
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Jim (profile), 28 Feb 2008 @ 7:08am

GoogleBitching
LOL.

Fits with what they are doing which is what I would call a pre-strike informational campaign. Very typical for both sides to go public with lots of information before and during negotiations.
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BlowURmindBowel, 28 Feb 2008 @ 8:00am

hehehe naming things is fun...
Flamoogle
Trolloogling
AdGripe
Advert-Flambé
Bitchcasting

Uh.. Could think of more but I'm supposedly at work?
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2008 @ 8:14am

Me thinks they both lose and Google wins...
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2008 @ 2:49pm

Ha ! Good One
Trolloogling
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