2008 February

Want to look like an official, authoritative local florist while sitting behind your desk thousands of miles away? Just add the federal registered trademark symbol - ® - to your Google Adwords ad titles and viola! you can be local without bothering with rent, employees or any of that other costly local stuff.

Just in time from Valentine’s Day, FlowersUSA.com, a web site owned and operated by FTD, has begun running ads targeting local searches for florists in communities across the US. The ads claim the company holds federal registered trademarks for an array of local names:

Today, a Google search for “Irvine Florist” shows:

A search for “Tempe florist” displays:

All flower orders sold through that site are processed by FTD and are either drop-shipped via common courier or transferred to real local florists, less $13 - $15 services fees and 27% commissions.

According to the USPTO, neither FTD nor FlowersUSA.com holds registered trademarks for Irvine Flowers, Tempe Flowers or Anaheim Flowers. In fact, we couldn’t even find trademark applications having ever been filed for such businesses.

It’s unclear what if any legal implications arise from falsely using a federal registered trademark symbol in the course of geographic misrepresentation. At any rate, it’s yet another look at the seedy side of ‘online florist’ flower marketing.

Let’s hope Google’s TOS make FTD/FlowersUSA.com pull all the ads with the phony trademark designations before Valentine’s Day flowers searchers get fooled into paying more and getting less than they would from real local florists.