Ad wars competitors tv#

But almost always, he says, participants regret it. Beard says ad wars erupt fairly often in response to comparative ad campaigns. There's also the potential for igniting a war of words fought with salvos of attack and counter-attack ads. “Don’t give aid and comfort to the enemy.” “That’s the number-one concern of professionals,” Beard says. There's the potential downside of spending money to run ads that name a rival product. “They generate interest, and people remember them.” The Downside of Comparison Adsīut comparative advertising carries risks. Comparative ads are good at communicating specific pieces of information in ways people will notice and recall later. This sort of advertising can work if a company can point to actual advantages it has over its competitor. “The strategy was to latch onto this brand equity they have and invite users to experience it themselves and see which is better,” explains Nicole Larrauri, a managing partner at EGC Group. When Melville, New York, ad agency The EGC Group was helping introduce a new steakhouse into a New York City market already well-populated with entrenched competitors, the company designed an ad that compared its client, Rothman’s, with the iconic Smith & Wollensky chain of steakhouses. They also allow lesser-known brands and new entrants to tap into the recognition owned by the brand targeted by the comparison. The power of a combative ad to pull eyeballs means slogans from these types of ad campaigns sometimes become cultural touchpoints, such as Wendy’s “Where’s the beef?” critique of competing fast-food chains. More commonly, ads employed implied comparative advertising, in which specific rivals aren't named.īut it's direct comparative ads that excel at drawing attention.

Ad wars competitors tv#

Examples date back at least a century, and the tactic got a boost in the 1970s when the Federal Trade Commission began encouraging advertisers to name competitors rather than comparing products to “Brand X.” Beard said regulators felt consumers benefited from knowing exactly what advertisers were matching themselves up against.Īccording to a study Beard made of ads that aired in 2012, about half of all network TV commercials employed some form of comparative advertising, though only 5 percent named their competitors in direct comparative ads. Who's Naming Names?Ĭomparative advertising has a lengthy history, according to University of Oklahoma advertising professor Fred Beard. Car insurance company ads also mention competitors, directly or indirectly, as do ads from car makers themselves. Similar disruptive advertising has become standard in the hotly competitive market for cellphone subscribers. So if the big guns are naming names, should your own company call out competitors and their products in your advertising? Maybe so. A Taco Bell spokesperson described the campaign as “disruptive marketing” and said the spots, which also include testimonials from several people named Ronald McDonald, help the company separate itself from the breakfast fast-food pack. Taco Bell’s latest TV commercial names arch-rival McDonald’s Egg McMuffin before even mentioning the new breakfast menu items the fast-food giant is rolling out itself.