RE: UKNM: Incorrect Use of Client Reference Sites

[Annie Millar]

Jane do we have an official answer to the bot atr bottonm about using

agency names in meta tags if not I think we should as I suspect these sort of

things will be hit at me at the talk


Robin Edwards wrote:

>Kirstie, although I cannot speak for everyone, I have a feeling that this is a 

>widespread problem. We had a similar case whereby on turning up at a sales 

>meeting and going through our portfolio, the prospective client said "Oh, you 

>must know XXX, because his company worked on that site too."

>

>Bemused, I asked him what he meant (because we had produced the site from 

>scratch, and no other agency had ever worked on it), and he produced the

>portfolio from the other agency which included some lovely screenshots of one 

>of our sites. Upon choking with surprise, the prospective client called this 

>agency to ask what was going on. The agency said it was a genuine mistake, and 

>that they had done some pitch work for our client. Somehow they had printed out 

>the 'wrong' screenshots. It wouldn't have been so bad, but the prospective 

>client said they had almost dismissed the agency on the basis that their

>portfolio was not very good, with the exception of the screens from the site we 

>produced! Just think - if I hadn't been there, the other agency might have got 

>work based solely on the quality of the work we had produced.

>

>Fortunately I was there, and we have had a long standing relationship with the 

>new client ever since.

>

>There are lots of examples of several agencies pointing to the home page of a 

>company and listing them as a client without explaining what they did for them. 

>Often they produced a sub-section of a site, a game/screen-saver/banner, or old 

>work which isn't even there any more. In this case they should, in my opinion, 

>only link to the bits that they did, or relegate the name of the client to a 

>non-linked list of past clients. Naming names is definitely a subject for 

>conversation at a future UKNM get together! The only way to counter this that I 

>can think of is to ask your client for a name-check at the bottom of their home 


>page. Not all will do this of course. Failing that, you need to keep on the 

>boil and seek out agencies who are effectively passing off your work as theirs 

>and ask/order them to stop doing it. Using a search engine that can list links 

>

>to your client's home page is one option, but it can be a laborious task.

>

>The thing that annoys me the most is the practice of using the names of the 

>major agencies in the meta tags of a home page to suck in people who are

>searching for that agency. We fall foul of this in several places, as do many 

>other agencies - try it and see! I'm not sure if this is illegal, but perhaps 

>it comes under miss-use of a trademark? If it does, I can feel a conversation 

>with a solicitor coming on. Does anyone else know for sure?

>

>Regards

>

>Robin

>--

>Robin Edwards

>Clockworx Design Limited

>T: +44 1543 252370          F: +44 1889 578789

>

E: robinclockworx [dot] co [dot] uk W: http://www.clockworx.com/