I mean this in the nicest way possible when I say: Mind your own business. Quite literally.
Pay attention to your own business, your own brand, your own products. It may be tempting, but don’t use others to fuel your advertisements.
For instance, take this comparative advertisement:
It might seem like a good idea at first, but this can actually be perceived as foul play in the consumer’s eyes.
There is something called evaluative conditioning, which is a change or a formation of attitude towards something due to its pairing with something else, in which that “something else” is a positive (you like it) or negative (you dislike it) stimuli.
A common example of evaluative conditioning can be seen in advertisements. Advertisers can decide between making consumers like their product more by associating it with positive unconditioned stimuli (positive evaluative conditioning), or making consumers like their competitor’s product less by associating it with negative unconditioned stimuli (negative evaluative conditioning).
According to studies, instances of negative evaluative conditioning have a lesser effect than positive evaluative conditioning. So, negative advertising, or trying to make consumers like your competitor less, is actually less effective than positive advertising, or trying to make consumers like your product more.
So, take it quite literally when I say to mind your own business, because research has proven it to be more beneficial and effective when it comes to marketing techniques.
References:
Comparative Advertising – Smart Strategy or Foul Game? (2013, October 06). Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://beawaremarketingiseverywhere.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/comparative-advertising-smart-strategy-or-foul-game/
Landwehr, J., Golla, B., & Reber, R. (2017, January 20). Processing fluency: An inevitable side effect of evaluative conditioning. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103116305595
Comments