Totally innocent abbreviation just been slapped with trademark ban

[ChanandlerBong]

without going into specifics, I've just had half my ads disapproved for being in contravention of a trademark. These ads have been running for 5 years and the abbreviation is of the type USA, RSVP, HTML - there's no chance it has been trademarked and if someone tried, they'd be laughed out of court.

As you know, getting in touch with a real person at google is nigh on impossible. I finally got a mail which said "you may reply to this mail" but that was two days ago.

What else can I do? The disapproved ads were big hitters and I'm showing half the ads I used to, all, I imagine, because of some dumb glitch "in the machine".

[Spyglass]

Move or add a punctuation mark or any other minor change that doesn't affect your ad message and re-submit. Your ads will then be re-assessed. This will get your ads showing again on Google quickly.
At the same time e-mail Google back and ask for your ads to be reviewed, pointing out the trademark issue and you should be OK.

[LucidSW]

Are you sure it's the word you think? As I recall, Adwords does not tell you which word in your ad is in violation. I've heard of people scratching their hand as to which one it is. Often times, it's a common word. You could be selling apple juice and get the trademark warning but you obviously in no way meant to infringe upon Apple, the computer company. If you think it's RSVP, there could be a company named RSVP.

Doesn't matter because the algo is not perfect. You can ask for an exemption which will make someone look manually and realize the two are not related and approve your ad. Simply click the Exemption check box, no need to call or try any tricks which may cause other problems.

[RhinoFish]

"Are you sure it's the word you think? As I recall, Adwords does not tell you which word in your ad is in violation. I've heard of people scratching their hand as to which one it is. Often times, it's a common word. You could be selling apple juice and get the trademark warning but you obviously in no way meant to infringe upon Apple, the computer company. If you think it's RSVP, there could be a company named RSVP."

Was exactly what I was going to say.

If you use G merchant center for feeds, they'll tell you the infringing words. I wish they'd do that for ppc platform.

I recently ran across a color that got flagged as a tm violation - ridiculous because there's no way a consumer could be confused or shown what i offer versus what niche the tm owner's biz is... that's what we get from algorithms, zero common sense.

you might try writing some new ads to figure out what's getting flagged.

[ChanandlerBong]

They told me which term it was in the e-mail they auto-sent me. Maybe that's a change in their policies.

[ChanandlerBong]

all ads are back active and I got a mail apologising. Over reliance on automation yet again, google!

[LucidSW]

Well, if they specify the problem, that's good. I think Google is improving in that area. Probably too many complaints about not being told more specifics which can be a problem in large accounts.

Glad the problem is fixed. As for relying on automation, they pretty much have to with some many accounts and campaigns. I'm sure things will improve over time as many other aspects of the program has.