Comparative Advertising
We’ve all seen different styles used in advertising by companies to reach out to their current and potential customers. Although we’ve all seen informative or humorous campaigns, one technique tends to stand out in my books as being very influential to gain potential customers – and that is Comparative Advertising.
This form of advertising is when the company intentionally mentions or targets their main competitor in order to show why their product or company is superior. This can range from the advertisement simply implying inferiority of competing brands/companies, to specifically mentioning facts or attributes of a product. Comparative advertising tends to mock or parody the competing brand in order to generate support for their product.
A company famous for implementing this strategy is Apple, with their Mac vs. PC campaign.
However, recently this technique is now being flipped on them. With the widely publicized legal battle between Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy S III over patents, Samsung decided to launch a campaign mocking Apple’s latest phone – the iPhone 5. It targets specifics of the phone, such as headphones jack on the bottom, implies how the recent phones have not changed and portrays the Apple fanatics in a negative light. Simultaneously, it has people show off a Galaxy S III, and has them demonstrate why it is superior, such as explaining features, or showing that much of the technology people are waiting in line for is readily available through Samsung.
Amazingly, it does all this without explicitly stating the product or company name in order to protect themselves from legal prosecution. Samsung uses suggestions such as similar stores, and had people wear the famous white Apple headphones in order to imply their message. And it worked perfectly.
As an Apple fanboy myself, this campaign has led me to reassess my current product choices. I think comparative advertising is a great way to attract potential consumers as well as change consumer attitudes. It provides reasons and justifications for to the consumer to switch over to their product and creates an impression that the other brand is inferior. By making these reasons so clear and blatant, it allows consumers to easily remember and evaluate their product in a positive manner.
Although some may see it as a ‘cheapshot’, or unethical – personally, I believe it is a very effective form of advertising to change consumer attitudes and habits.
What are your thoughts?
Targeting iPhone users and apple loyal customers is a difficult task, and the benefits of the new product need to be clearly demonstrated. I think that the mocking in this ad is unnecessary and might offend some users, but it is definitely memorable which is what Samsung was aiming for. I don’t think that this ad is unethical, considering the two products are just being compared, and there is no lying being done. This was a smart approach considering the difficult customers this product is trying to target. They did a good job at highlighting the phone’s benefits, and it makes you want to try it out to see if it better meets your needs. It’s new size and innovative features and capabilities will probably attract many new and young customers.
I think Samsung’s ad is strong on many points. Samsung incorporates humour to facilitate the comparative process between the Galaxy and iPhone. By using humour, consumers are more likely to remember this ad. Seriously, for a good week or two, everyone was talking about how funny the ad was, and almost forgot what the ad was about. Also, Samsung chose effective distribution outlets for the ad. On every Youtube video, this ad would pop up. Samsung did a good job on making the ad viral. Also, naturally they released the ad in the appropriate time, the time the iPhone 5 came out.
Regardless of how successful the ad was, its effects on consumer behaviour are subjective on the person. For example, i am brand loyal to apple, and i am not in a situation of making a decision of buying a phone or not (situational factor). However for people who are not as brand loyal and ARE in a situation of choosing a new phone, this ad may influence their purchase decisions. Also, in the future if i were to buy a new phone, i would be nervous about the switching cost of moving to Samsung (or another brand) since i am so used to the Apple’s design and performance.
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