comparative-advertising

What Is Comparative Advertising? Comparative Advertising In A Nutshell

In comparative advertising, there is a direct challenge by the advertiser to a competitor’s product or service. In general, it’s used to present a product or service as being superior to a comparable product or service as a competitor. Value is communicated through price, range, volume, size, or quality. 

AspectExplanation
DefinitionComparative Advertising is a marketing strategy that involves comparing a product or service to a competitor’s offering. This form of advertising highlights the advantages, features, or price differences between the advertised product and one or more competing products. The goal is to persuade consumers that the advertised product is superior or offers better value than the alternatives.
Key ConceptsProduct Comparison: The core concept is comparing attributes of the advertised product to those of competitors. – Differentiation: Emphasizes what makes the advertised product unique or better. – Consumer Choice: Addresses consumer decision-making by providing information for choice. – Competitive Edge: Aims to establish a competitive advantage for the advertised product. – Legal Considerations: Must comply with regulations regarding truthful and non-deceptive advertising.
CharacteristicsProduct Comparison: The central characteristic is the side-by-side comparison with competitor products. – Informational: Provides consumers with information to make informed choices. – Persuasive: Aims to persuade consumers that the advertised product is the better option. – Variability: Comparative advertising can range from subtle comparisons to more direct contrasts. – Risk of Backlash: May lead to legal challenges or damage to the brand’s reputation if not executed carefully.
ImplicationsConsumer Decision-Making: Influences consumers’ choices by highlighting product advantages. – Competitive Dynamics: Can intensify competition among brands in the same market. – Legal Compliance: Must adhere to laws and regulations governing comparative advertising to avoid legal issues. – Brand Image: Can impact the image of both the advertiser and the competitors mentioned. – Consumer Perception: May influence how consumers perceive the quality and value of the advertised product.
AdvantagesCompetitive Edge: Can create a competitive advantage by showcasing superior product attributes. – Consumer Information: Informs consumers about product features and benefits. – Brand Recall: Makes the advertised product memorable when compared to competitors. – Market Positioning: Helps establish a distinct market position. – Innovation Promotion: Encourages product innovation to outperform competitors.
DrawbacksLegal Risks: Comparative advertising must comply with laws and can lead to legal challenges. – Negative Impact: May harm the image of competitors or lead to backlash from rivals. – Consumer Confusion: Misleading comparisons can confuse consumers. – Ethical Concerns: Can raise ethical questions about fairness and transparency. – Overemphasis on Competition: Can shift focus away from highlighting the product’s own merits.
ApplicationsProduct Launches: Often used when introducing a new product to demonstrate its superiority. – Price Comparison: Common in industries where pricing is a key factor, such as electronics or retail. – Feature Highlights: Effective for products with unique or standout features. – Rebranding: Used during rebranding efforts to shift market perception. – Market Share Growth: Employed to gain market share from competitors.

 

Understanding comparative advertising

Instances of comparative advertising were rare prior to the 1970s because of the perceived risks in running such a campaign. Indeed, comparative advertising could invite legal complications and result in public sympathy for the competitor whose products or services were being negatively portrayed.

In 1972, however, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had a change of heart. The agency encouraged advertisers to make direct comparisons with their competitors, ostensibly to increase public welfare through more informative advertising and foster healthy competition between companies. Today, the FTC defines comparative advertising as “advertisement that compares alternative brands on objectively measurable attributes or price, and identifies the alternative brand by name, illustration, or other distinctive information.

Generally speaking, comparative advertising is used to present a product or service as being superior to a comparable product or service from a competitor. The main goal of the business running the ad is to communicate the value of their brand relative to the attributes of one or more other brands. Here, value may take the form of product size, range, quality, volume, or price.

While comparative advertising is most frequently seen in product or service promotion, it has also formed part of political advertisements. In this case, a candidate standing for election may describe how they’ll avoid making the same mistakes as the incumbent.

Comparative advertising examples

To help you get a better sense of comparative advertising, we have included some real-world examples below:

Mac vs. PC

Apple once promoted their Mac computers by running commercials that personified each option in comical ways. In one campaign, the Mac was relaxed and charismatic while the person serving as the PC was dorky and overwhelmed. In another, the PC is unwell having contracted a virus. The Mac, of course, is immune and remains cool, calm, and collected.

Wendy’s vs. McDonald’s

To advertise that they still used fresh beef in their fast-food products, a viral tweet from Wendy’s showed a Big Mac turning into dust with the caption “[That feeling when] your beef’s still frozen.

Samsung vs. Apple

To promote the new Galaxy S II, Samsung used comparative advertising to portray the typical iPhone fan as someone who waits in line for hours during a new model release and obsesses over online reviews. When a Samsung user walks past a queue of Apple fans on the street, they are impressed with the large screen and 4G capability. The advertisement ends with the slogan “The next big thing is already here.

BMW vs. Mercedes

In another example of comparative advertising on Twitter, BMW poked fun at rival Mercedes when they tweeted a picture of a Mercedes sports car wearing a BMW costume. The implication here was that the BMW was a superhero to the Mercedes sedan. In other words, every Mercedes wants to be a BMW in the same way every child wants to be Superman. 

Comparative Advertising in Action

To better understand the practical applications of comparative advertising, let’s explore how it is utilized by businesses in various industries, its impact on consumer decision-making, and its role in shaping market dynamics.

Case Study: Smartphone Wars

  • Scenario: The smartphone industry is highly competitive, with multiple brands vying for market dominance.
  • Comparative Advertising in Action:
    • Comparison: Smartphone manufacturers frequently launch advertising campaigns comparing their products’ features, camera capabilities, and performance to those of their competitors.
    • Differentiation: Companies highlight unique features, such as camera innovations or processing power, to set their products apart.
    • Market Share: Comparative advertising plays a crucial role in influencing consumers’ choices and driving market share gains.

Additional Examples and Applications:

  1. Fast Food Industry:
    • Fast food chains often engage in comparative advertising to showcase their menu items’ superior taste, quality, or value compared to rival offerings.
  2. Automotive Sector:
    • Car manufacturers employ comparative advertising to emphasize safety features, fuel efficiency, or advanced technology in their vehicles.
  3. Consumer Electronics:
    • Companies in the electronics industry highlight factors such as screen quality, battery life, or compatibility to sway consumer preferences.

Additional Examples and Use Cases:

  1. Soft Drinks: Beverage companies frequently run comparative advertising campaigns comparing taste preferences and market share.
  2. Pharmaceuticals: Pharmaceutical companies use comparative advertising to illustrate the effectiveness and benefits of their medications versus alternatives.
  3. Tech Gadgets: Manufacturers of tech gadgets, such as smartphones and laptops, engage in comparative advertising to promote unique features and capabilities.

Key takeaways:

  • Comparative advertising is used to present a product or service as being superior to a comparable product or service as a competitor. Value is communicated through price, range, volume, size, or quality. 
  • Comparative advertising is most frequently seen in product or service promotion. However, it has also formed part of political advertisements during election campaigns.
  • Comparative advertising can be seen in countless real-world scenarios. Apple used the strategy to favorably compare its Mac computers with PC alternatives, while Wendy’s took to Twitter to highlight that it used fresher products than rival McDonald’s.

Key Highlights

  • Definition and Purpose: Comparative advertising involves a direct challenge by an advertiser to a competitor’s product or service, aiming to present their own offering as superior. This is often done by highlighting objectively measurable attributes, prices, or other distinctive information.
  • Historical Context: Comparative advertising was rare before the 1970s due to perceived legal risks and potential negative impacts. However, the FTC’s stance changed in 1972, encouraging informative advertising and healthy competition between companies through direct comparisons.
  • Goal: The primary objective of comparative advertising is to communicate the value of the advertiser’s brand in comparison to one or more competitor brands. Value can be expressed through factors such as product size, quality, range, volume, or price.
  • Variety of Use: While most commonly used in promoting products or services, comparative advertising has also been used in political advertisements, where candidates contrast their approach with that of incumbents.
  • Examples:
    • Mac vs. PC: Apple used humorous commercials personifying Mac and PC, highlighting Mac’s strengths while portraying PC’s weaknesses.
    • Wendy’s vs. McDonald’s: Wendy’s tweeted about using fresh beef by showing a Big Mac turning to dust, implying their superior quality.
    • Samsung vs. Apple: Samsung’s ad compared its Galaxy S II to the iPhone, portraying iPhone fans as obsessed and highlighting Galaxy’s features.
    • BMW vs. Mercedes: BMW playfully depicted a Mercedes sports car wearing a BMW costume, implying BMW’s superiority.
  • Key Takeaways:
    • Comparative advertising communicates product/service superiority through various aspects like price, quality, size, and more.
    • It’s widely used in product promotion and can also be seen in political campaigns.
    • Real-world examples illustrate how companies use comparative advertising creatively to differentiate themselves from competitors.

Visual Marketing Glossary

Account-Based Marketing

account-based-marketing
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategy where the marketing and sales departments come together to create personalized buying experiences for high-value accounts. Account-based marketing is a business-to-business (B2B) approach in which marketing and sales teams work together to target high-value accounts and turn them into customers.

Ad-Ops

ad-ops
Ad Ops – also known as Digital Ad Operations – refers to systems and processes that support digital advertisements’ delivery and management. The concept describes any process that helps a marketing team manage, run, or optimize ad campaigns, making them an integrating part of the business operations.

AARRR Funnel

pirate-metrics
Venture capitalist, Dave McClure, coined the acronym AARRR which is a simplified model that enables to understand what metrics and channels to look at, at each stage for the users’ path toward becoming customers and referrers of a brand.

Affinity Marketing

affinity-marketing
Affinity marketing involves a partnership between two or more businesses to sell more products. Note that this is a mutually beneficial arrangement where one brand can extend its reach and enhance its credibility in association with the other.

Ambush Marketing

ambush-marketing
As the name suggests, ambush marketing raises awareness for brands at events in a covert and unexpected fashion. Ambush marketing takes many forms, one common element, the brand advertising their products or services has not paid for the right to do so. Thus, the business doing the ambushing attempts to capitalize on the efforts made by the business sponsoring the event.

Affiliate Marketing

affiliate-marketing
Affiliate marketing describes the process whereby an affiliate earns a commission for selling the products of another person or company. Here, the affiliate is simply an individual who is motivated to promote a particular product through incentivization. The business whose product is being promoted will gain in terms of sales and marketing from affiliates.

Bullseye Framework

bullseye-framework
The bullseye framework is a simple method that enables you to prioritize the marketing channels that will make your company gain traction. The main logic of the bullseye framework is to find the marketing channels that work and prioritize them.

Brand Building

brand-building
Brand building is the set of activities that help companies to build an identity that can be recognized by its audience. Thus, it works as a mechanism of identification through core values that signal trust and that help build long-term relationships between the brand and its key stakeholders.

Brand Dilution

brand-dilution
According to inbound marketing platform HubSpot, brand dilution occurs “when a company’s brand equity diminishes due to an unsuccessful brand extension, which is a new product the company develops in an industry that they don’t have any market share in.” Brand dilution, therefore, occurs when a brand decreases in value after the company releases a product that does not align with its vision, mission, or skillset. 

Brand Essence Wheel

brand-essence-wheel
The brand essence wheel is a templated approach businesses can use to better understand their brand. The brand essence wheel has obvious implications for external brand strategy. However, it is equally important in simplifying brand strategy for employees without a strong marketing background. Although many variations of the brand essence wheel exist, a comprehensive wheel incorporates information from five categories: attributes, benefits, values, personality, brand essence.

Brand Equity

what-is-brand-equity
The brand equity is the premium that a customer is willing to pay for a product that has all the objective characteristics of existing alternatives, thus, making it different in terms of perception. The premium on seemingly equal products and quality is attributable to its brand equity.

Brand Positioning

brand-positioning
Brand positioning is about creating a mental real estate in the mind of the target market. If successful, brand positioning allows a business to gain a competitive advantage. And it also works as a switching cost in favor of the brand. Consumers recognizing a brand might be less prone to switch to another brand.

Business Storytelling

business-storytelling
Business storytelling is a critical part of developing a business model. Indeed, the way you frame the story of your organization will influence its brand in the long-term. That’s because your brand story is tied to your brand identity, and it enables people to identify with a company.

Content Marketing

content-marketing
Content marketing is one of the most powerful commercial activities which focuses on leveraging content production (text, audio, video, or other formats) to attract a targeted audience. Content marketing focuses on building a strong brand, but also to convert part of that targeted audience into potential customers.

Customer Lifetime Value

customer-lifetime-value
One of the first mentions of customer lifetime value was in the 1988 book Database Marketing: Strategy and Implementation written by Robert Shaw and Merlin Stone. Customer lifetime value (CLV) represents the value of a customer to a company over a period of time. It represents a critical business metric, especially for SaaS or recurring revenue-based businesses.

Customer Segmentation

customer-segmentation
Customer segmentation is a marketing method that divides the customers in sub-groups, that share similar characteristics. Thus, product, marketing and engineering teams can center the strategy from go-to-market to product development and communication around each sub-group. Customer segments can be broken down is several ways, such as demographics, geography, psychographics and more.

Developer Marketing

developer-marketing
Developer marketing encompasses tactics designed to grow awareness and adopt software tools, solutions, and SaaS platforms. Developer marketing has become the standard among software companies with a platform component, where developers can build applications on top of the core software or open software. Therefore, engaging developer communities has become a key element of marketing for many digital businesses.

Digital Marketing Channels

digital-marketing-channels
A digital channel is a marketing channel, part of a distribution strategy, helping an organization to reach its potential customers via electronic means. There are several digital marketing channels, usually divided into organic and paid channels. Some organic channels are SEO, SMO, email marketing. And some paid channels comprise SEM, SMM, and display advertising.

Field Marketing

field-marketing
Field marketing is a general term that encompasses face-to-face marketing activities carried out in the field. These activities may include street promotions, conferences, sales, and various forms of experiential marketing. Field marketing, therefore, refers to any marketing activity that is performed in the field.

Funnel Marketing

funnel-marketing
interaction with a brand until they become a paid customer and beyond. Funnel marketing is modeled after the marketing funnel, a concept that tells the company how it should market to consumers based on their position in the funnel itself. The notion of a customer embarking on a journey when interacting with a brand was first proposed by Elias St. Elmo Lewis in 1898. Funnel marketing typically considers three stages of a non-linear marketing funnel. These are top of the funnel (TOFU), middle of the funnel (MOFU), and bottom of the funnel (BOFU). Particular marketing strategies at each stage are adapted to the level of familiarity the consumer has with a brand.

Go-To-Market Strategy

go-to-market-strategy
A go-to-market strategy represents how companies market their new products to reach target customers in a scalable and repeatable way. It starts with how new products/services get developed to how these organizations target potential customers (via sales and marketing models) to enable their value proposition to be delivered to create a competitive advantage.

Greenwashing

greenwashing
The term “greenwashing” was first coined by environmentalist Jay Westerveld in 1986 at a time when most consumers received their news from television, radio, and print media. Some companies took advantage of limited public access to information by portraying themselves as environmental stewards – even when their actions proved otherwise. Greenwashing is a deceptive marketing practice where a company makes unsubstantiated claims about an environmentally-friendly product or service.

Grassroots Marketing

grassroots-marketing
Grassroots marketing involves a brand creating highly targeted content for a particular niche or audience. When an organization engages in grassroots marketing, it focuses on a small group of people with the hope that its marketing message is shared with a progressively larger audience.

Growth Marketing

growth-marketing
Growth marketing is a process of rapid experimentation, which in a way has to be “scientific” by keeping in mind that it is used by startups to grow, quickly. Thus, the “scientific” here is not meant in the academic sense. Growth marketing is expected to unlock growth, quickly and with an often limited budget.

Guerrilla Marketing

guerrilla-marketing
Guerrilla marketing is an advertising strategy that seeks to utilize low-cost and sometimes unconventional tactics that are high impact. First coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book of the same title, guerrilla marketing works best on existing customers who are familiar with a brand or product and its particular characteristics.

Hunger Marketing

hunger-marketing
Hunger marketing is a marketing strategy focused on manipulating consumer emotions. By bringing products to market with an attractive price point and restricted supply, consumers have a stronger desire to make a purchase.

Integrated Communication

integrated-marketing-communication
Integrated marketing communication (IMC) is an approach used by businesses to coordinate and brand their communication strategies. Integrated marketing communication takes separate marketing functions and combines them into one, interconnected approach with a core brand message that is consistent across various channels. These encompass owned, earned, and paid media. Integrated marketing communication has been used to great effect by companies such as Snapchat, Snickers, and Domino’s.

Inbound Marketing

inbound-marketing
Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy designed to attract customers to a brand with content and experiences that they derive value from. Inbound marketing utilizes blogs, events, SEO, and social media to create brand awareness and attract targeted consumers. By attracting or “drawing in” a targeted audience, inbound marketing differs from outbound marketing which actively pushes a brand onto consumers who may have no interest in what is being offered.

Integrated Marketing

integrated-marketing
Integrated marketing describes the process of delivering consistent and relevant content to a target audience across all marketing channels. It is a cohesive, unified, and immersive marketing strategy that is cost-effective and relies on brand identity and storytelling to amplify the brand to a wider and wider audience.

Marketing Mix

marketing-mix
The marketing mix is a term to describe the multi-faceted approach to a complete and effective marketing plan. Traditionally, this plan included the four Ps of marketing: price, product, promotion, and place. But the exact makeup of a marketing mix has undergone various changes in response to new technologies and ways of thinking. Additions to the four Ps include physical evidence, people, process, and even politics.

Marketing Myopia

marketing-myopia
Marketing myopia is the nearsighted focus on selling goods and services at the expense of consumer needs. Marketing myopia was coined by Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt in 1960. Originally, Levitt described the concept in the context of organizations in high-growth industries that become complacent in their belief that such industries never fail.

Marketing Personas

marketing-personas
Marketing personas give businesses a general overview of key segments of their target audience and how these segments interact with their brand. Marketing personas are based on the data of an ideal, fictional customer whose characteristics, needs, and motivations are representative of a broader market segment.

Meme Marketing

meme-marketing
Meme marketing is any marketing strategy that uses memes to promote a brand. The term “meme” itself was popularized by author Richard Dawkins over 50 years later in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. In the book, Dawkins described how ideas evolved and were shared across different cultures. The internet has enabled this exchange to occur at an exponential rate, with the first modern memes emerging in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Microtargeting

microtargeting
Microtargeting is a marketing strategy that utilizes consumer demographic data to identify the interests of a very specific group of individuals. Like most marketing strategies, the goal of microtargeting is to positively influence consumer behavior.

Multi-Channel Marketing

multichannel-marketing
Multichannel marketing executes a marketing strategy across multiple platforms to reach as many consumers as possible. Here, a platform may refer to product packaging, word-of-mouth advertising, mobile apps, email, websites, or promotional events, and all the other channels that can help amplify the brand to reach as many consumers as possible.

Multi-Level Marketing

multilevel-marketing
Multi-level marketing (MLM), otherwise known as network or referral marketing, is a strategy in which businesses sell their products through person-to-person sales. When consumers join MLM programs, they act as distributors. Distributors make money by selling the product directly to other consumers. They earn a small percentage of sales from those that they recruit to do the same – often referred to as their “downline”.

Net Promoter Score

net-promoter-score
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure of the ability of a product or service to attract word-of-mouth advertising. NPS is a crucial part of any marketing strategy since attracting and then retaining customers means they are more likely to recommend a business to others.

Neuromarketing

neuromarketing
Neuromarketing information is collected by measuring brain activity related to specific brain functions using sophisticated and expensive technology such as MRI machines. Some businesses also choose to make inferences of neurological responses by analyzing biometric and heart-rate data. Neuromarketing is the domain of large companies with similarly large budgets or subsidies. These include Frito-Lay, Google, and The Weather Channel.

Newsjacking

newsjacking
Newsjacking as a marketing strategy was popularised by David Meerman Scott in his book Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage. Newsjacking describes the practice of aligning a brand with a current event to generate media attention and increase brand exposure.

Niche Marketing

microniche
A microniche is a subset of potential customers within a niche. In the era of dominating digital super-platforms, identifying a microniche can kick off the strategy of digital businesses to prevent competition against large platforms. As the microniche becomes a niche, then a market, scale becomes an option.

Push vs. Pull Marketing

push-vs-pull-marketing
We can define pull and push marketing from the perspective of the target audience or customers. In push marketing, as the name suggests, you’re promoting a product so that consumers can see it. In a pull strategy, consumers might look for your product or service drawn by its brand.

Real-Time Marketing

real-time-marketing
Real-time marketing is as exactly as it sounds. It involves in-the-moment marketing to customers across any channel based on how that customer is interacting with the brand.

Relationship Marketing

relationship-marketing
Relationship marketing involves businesses and their brands forming long-term relationships with customers. The focus of relationship marketing is to increase customer loyalty and engagement through high-quality products and services. It differs from short-term processes focused solely on customer acquisition and individual sales.

Reverse Marketing

reverse-marketing
Reverse marketing describes any marketing strategy that encourages consumers to seek out a product or company on their own. This approach differs from a traditional marketing strategy where marketers seek out the consumer.

Remarketing

remarketing
Remarketing involves the creation of personalized and targeted ads for consumers who have already visited a company’s website. The process works in this way: as users visit a brand’s website, they are tagged with cookies that follow the users, and as they land on advertising platforms where retargeting is an option (like social media platforms) they get served ads based on their navigation.

Sensory Marketing

sensory-marketing
Sensory marketing describes any marketing campaign designed to appeal to the five human senses of touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are enabling marketers to design fun, interactive, and immersive sensory marketing brand experiences. Long term, businesses must develop sensory marketing campaigns that are relevant and effective in eCommerce.

Services Marketing

services-marketing
Services marketing originated as a separate field of study during the 1980s. Researchers realized that the unique characteristics of services required different marketing strategies to those used in the promotion of physical goods. Services marketing is a specialized branch of marketing that promotes the intangible benefits delivered by a company to create customer value.

Sustainable Marketing

sustainable-marketing-green-marketing
Sustainable marketing describes how a business will invest in social and environmental initiatives as part of its marketing strategy. Also known as green marketing, it is often used to counteract public criticism around wastage, misleading advertising, and poor quality or unsafe products.

Word-of-Mouth Marketing

word-of-mouth-marketing
Word-of-mouth marketing is a marketing strategy skewed toward offering a great experience to existing customers and incentivizing them to share it with other potential customers. That is one of the most effective forms of marketing as it enables a company to gain traction based on existing customers’ referrals. When repeat customers become a key enabler for the brand this is one of the best organic and sustainable growth marketing strategies.

360 Marketing

360-marketing
360 marketing is a marketing campaign that utilizes all available mediums, channels, and consumer touchpoints. 360 marketing requires the business to maintain a consistent presence across multiple online and offline channels. This ensures it does not miss potentially lucrative customer segments. By its very nature, 360 marketing describes any number of different marketing strategies. However, a broad and holistic marketing strategy should incorporate a website, SEO, PPC, email marketing, social media, public relations, in-store relations, and traditional forms of advertising such as television.

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