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With the increasing focus on capitalism and commercialization, there has been a steep rise in the growth of the advertising industry. Due to the increase in competition, every brand today is trying to attract the maximum number of consumers through advertising. Today, advertising per hour has reached to 18-19 minutes on radio and 14-17 minutes on television.
According to Kalle Lasn, an international critic of advertising, “it (advertising) is the most prevalent and toxic of mental pollutants. From the moment your radio alarm sounds in the morning to the wee hours of late-night TV micro jolts of commercial pollution flood into your brain everyday.” However, commercial advertising is undoubtedly a necessary evil for media, business, the economy, consumers and capitalist businessmen.
Comparative advertising basically involves making comparison between two products or services, by one of the competitors with the sole intention of showing his product/service as superior to the other. It often involves the use of identical logos and trademarks, a play on words, clash of celebrities, research claims, etc.
Healthy competition is necessary in a capitalist society, and hence comparative advertising is welcome. But the way it functions these days, comparative advertising has been reduced to a dirty game of mockery between brands and hardly affects the informed consumers’ choices. Today, ad agencies, in order to project their clients as the most superior, often parody the commercials of their competitors, leading to virtual wars in the advertising industry.
Some of the prominent ad wars of the last decade were:
MICROSOFT – APPLE
Some years back, Microsoft launched a campaign to advertise its online features under the punch line, “Where do you want to go tomorrow?” Apple attacked this campaign through its new ad, “Where do you want to go today?” – thus suggesting that the consumer think about today rather than tomorrow. They both used web advertising extensively to virtually and subtly slap each other in the face.
PEPSI- COKE
The Pepsi-Coke ad war is one of the oldest examples of comparative advertising. It started in the 1980s when Pepsi launched its ad showing consumers preferring Pepsi over Coca Cola in a blind taste test. The next major send-up came in 1996, when Pepsi introduced its punch line “Nothing Official about It” after Coca Cola was declared the official sponsor of the Cricket World Cup that year.
This war continued through subsequent take-offs on Mountain Dew, Sprite and Thumps Up – by both brands. The virtual war had been very prominent since 2003 after the aggressive ads of Mountain Dew and Thumps Up. This year, PepsiCo launched a TV ad featuring Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Shah Rukh Khan enacting a comic scene around an alien. Coca Cola launched its parody on Pepsi through Sprite’s “Seedhi Baat, No Bakwaas” punch line, featuring the look-alikes of the three actors seen in the Pepsi advertisement.
HORLICKS – COMPLAN
The brand war between the two popular health drinks, Horlicks and Complan, is not a new one in India. In September 2008, Heinz, the parent company of Complan, filed a court case against GSK’s Horlicks for showing Horlicks as a better and cheaper option than Complan, in terms of nutritional value and market price. The war between these two brands started in the 1960s and has evolved into aggressive advertising through print and electronic media, showing comparisons in attributes such as protein content, growth, ingredients, flavours and cost.
NESTLE – CADBURY
Cadbury always makes commercials with which people in general would like to be associated with. Its recent line of ads for Dairy Milk, with the tag line – “meetha hai khana aaj pehli tareekh hai” – urges people to consume Cadbury chocolate on the first of every month as people gets their salaries on that day. It successfully captured people’s attention.
But Cadbury’s competitor Nestle, soon launched a spoof on the Cadbury ad advising people to consume Nestle Munch everyday and not just on the first of the month. Its tag line, “Khao bina Tareeq dekhe” directly challenges Cadbury by saying “Enjoy Munch without looking at the calendar.” The “Aaj Pehli Tarikh Hai” v/s “Sirf Pehli Tarikh Ko Nahin, Kabhi Bi Kha Sakte Hai” ad war is an example of ridicule through comparative advertising.
Proctor & Gamble – Hindustan UniLever:
Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Hindustan Unilever (HUL), the two major producers of consumer goods, have been involved in comparative advertising for a long time now. Though earlier, the comparison was subtle or in the form of market price comparisons, now they have come out in the open, taking the ad war to a different level.
It started on February 25 (year?), when HUL’ s Rin, filed a court case against P&G’s Tide Natural for claiming that it contained natural ingredients like sandalwood and lemon, though it was a synthetic detergent. Apart from the court case, HUL also launched a nation-wide ad campaign which blatantly claimed that Rin is better than Tide as it offers more whiteness (“behtar safedi”).
Subsequently Tide took HUL to court and the ad was withdrawn. But this ad was so strategically launched on TV channels that it coincided with a long weekend, guaranteeing enough visibility among consumers. Even after the ad was withdrawn, the HUL spokesperson re-iterated that the advertisement was based on independent laboratory tests based on international protocols and proved that Rin offers superior whiteness.
Earlier a commercial for HUL’s Clinic All Clear Shampoo had spoofed P&G’s Head & Shoulders. HUL’s ad showed Bollywood actress, Bipasha Basu, searching for a girl with zero dandruff. The girl with dandruff mentions the name of her shampoo, making a muted reference to Head & Shoulders. These are just a few examples of the numerous comparative advertising campaigns in India.
Today comparative advertising has been reduced to mud-slinging and showing the competitor’s brand in a bad light. This just degrades the integrity of the brand doing the comparative ads and is fatal to the spirit of healthy competition. Do people really care about such comparisons? Do such ads help us to make better, more informed choices? I don’t think so. The Indian consumer is getting more aware these days, and such ads are just a matter of amusement for the consumer.
Such ads don’t serve the consumers’ interests at all and on a larger platform, we don’t really care about such underhand tactics. If a brand is good, it will be successful irrespective of its ad campaign. And if it’s bad and the company insecure, then even bold comparative ads won’t do anything for the brand.
There is a difference between informing the consumer and degrading your competitor’s image. This kind of comparative advertising hardly affects the sale of the products; they merely send out an unethical message and amuses the audience. A good commercial should just show the qualities of its products, rather that mocking others and leave it to the consumer to choose from the myriad options on offer.
As a matter of fact, there is no prohibition on such advertising under Indian law. A brand is at liberty to showcase its product as the best through advertising. But it comes with some riders – such as not hurting the reputation of the competitor’s brand. The Advertising Standards Council of India provides the requisite guidelines to regulate the content of advertisements but its recommendations are optional.
Mahima Taneja
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5) Loading ...
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Can someone enlighten me on the concept of brand communication?