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Competitive advertising compares a product’s features and benefits to similar products sold by other companies. It can be effective but can also become battle-focused and limit a company’s marketing approach. Consumers make decisions based on a wide range of factors.
Competitive advertising, also called comparison advertising, is a marketing technique that directly compares a product’s features and benefits to similar products sold by other companies. It is an advertising style that responds aggressively to the actions of market competitors. The approach is based on the theory that consumers can be lured away from another product by convincing them that some independent review has proven the superiority of one product over another.
Most companies have a limited advertising budget. The company’s approach to marketing its products can be focused on what the customer needs or what the product offers. A needs-based approach can focus advertising on the low price of a product, capitalizing on the customer’s need to save money. Product-focused advertising takes the approach that a product is so superior that customers buy it regardless of any other specific need.
Companies that employ competitive advertising are taking a product-focused approach to marketing. They make a strategic decision that the most important fact about their product is how it compares favorably to a competitor’s product. This is a position most often relevant to the product that has the smallest market share. It rarely benefits the market leader to recognize the challenger, as recognition of the threat gives the challenger a certain level of legitimacy.
There are some memorable examples of competitive advertising in the consumer market. It is said that companies that end up in a back-and-forth advertising campaign, pitting one product against another, are at “war.” Two of the most famous competitive advertising campaigns in the US, for example, were the Burger Wars of the 1970s and the Cola Wars of the 1980s. Products were directly compared in each instance through tricks such as “blind testing” and ” independent research” that tried to prove that one product tasted better than another.
The danger of competitive advertising is that it can easily get out of hand. In the same way that overly aggressive competitive pricing can drive companies to cut costs, competitive advertising can easily become more battle-focused and less focused on consumer needs. The companies involved end up talking to each other instead of talking to the consumer.
Another factor that is important to consider when allocating a marketing budget for competitive advertising is that comparative factors can form only one part of the consumer’s decision-making process. Consumers make decisions based on a wide range of factors. Sometimes, the best product is not what the consumer wants, as he may want the cheapest product or the product he has used since childhood. At other times, the consumer may prefer the product in the package that best fits on the bottom shelf. Competitive advertising can be all-consuming and can limit a company’s marketing approach to its own detriment.
Asset Smart.
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