How to use "Comparative advertising" to kill opponents?

Comparative advertising (comparative advertising) refers to the direct comparison of its own products with competitors ' products to prove that their products are more superior advertising marketing forms. In China, advertising law expressly stipulates that advertising "shall not involve specific products or services ... Not to belittle other production operators of goods or services. "So there is almost no contrast advertising in China. The United States Federal Trade Commission and other subjective organizations that contrast advertising can not only encourage competition, but also to provide consumers with more information, it is only required advertisers to follow the principle of fair competition, based on the facts, but not prohibit, and even to some extent to encourage such advertising forms.

In the IT industry in North America. The major industry manufacturers basically have the history of using comparative advertising. There are many cases with good effects, and there are examples of ineffective and even crisis-causing.

success Case: Apple get A MAC series

Apple is one of the companies in the industry that uses the most comparative advertising and marketing. Before launching the IPhone, IPad and other multi-platform devices, because of product line structure and market position reasons, Apple has long in various occasions with Microsoft, Intel and HP and other hardware and software manufacturers of similar products to compare with Apple products, to illustrate the advantages of its own products. The contrast between MAC and PC products after Jobs's return to Apple is a classic series. Here's one of the earliest, played in 1998, when a boy and a young man assembled the imac and Hewlett-Packard PC products to speed up the Web browsing task, highlighting the advantages of the Apple IMac's all-in-one design and the simplicity of the Mac OS 9 system.

The Get A MAC series comparison ad began in 2006 as a series of contrasting ads with Microsoft's Windows PC after Apple launched its Intel processor in its computer products. The ads use a vibrant young man on behalf of the Mac, while a bloated, middle-aged male represents a PC with a Windows operating system, highlighting the advantages of its Mac computer products through a humorous dialogue between the two. This series of ads highlights the advantages of Mac products over Windows PCs in terms of security, stability, ILife and IWork office suites, MAC PC hardware configuration, and compatibility.

The announcement comes as Microsoft publishes the Vista operating system, which captures the flaws in the Vista version of many consumer choices, and middle-aged men on behalf of PCs are hesitating in six versions of Vista, complaining that the expensive version features an excess, inexpensive version of the feature, Try to randomly decide which version you should buy by using a turntable. The young man on behalf of the MAC took the opportunity to tell him that Mac OS X has only one version and meets all the needs of the user. The end is quite humorous, the PC man started the turntable, the turntable did not stop in any version, and stopped in the "lost a game."

Get a Mac Series contrast advertising has been successful in industry evaluation and market performance, this series of ads won the "Effie" and other industries in the important awards, but also successfully left consumers with a better Mac than PC impression, such as PC Magazine columnist Lance Ulanoff He recounts the fact that his unit, with his PC lettering, was ridiculed by relatives who had been heavily influenced by ads, and had to struggle to explain the concept of a MAC computer as a PC's story.

In addition, the Get A MAC series has become a popular imitation among other companies and amateur video producers in the form of visual advertising for people representing products. For example, the famous Linux products and services giant Novell used this form to produce several videos to promote the Linux operating system. In the video below, Novell on behalf of the MAC and PC in addition to the two men to represent the beauty of Linux, in the ads are constantly donated to the beauty of trendy coats and accessories, while the two men's costumes for a long time unchanged, it is a good embodiment of the Linux system open source free, Updated with quick features.

dispute case: Verizon and at&t advertising campaign

Verizon and At&t are the first and second largest operators in the United States. In recent years, with the rapid development of mobile Internet, as well as instant messaging products into the mobile platform threat, the two sides around the network coverage, 3G standards, contract phone models and other aspects of the competition has become increasingly fierce.

In 2009, Verizon released a series of contrasting ads called "Map description" (There's A map for that), sparking widespread controversy among major media and related manufacturers. The series showcases the smooth and enjoyable 3G use of Verizon's web users and the At&t users who frown on their inability to enjoy 3G. Explaining the reason for the discrepancy, the ads were shown alongside Verizon and At&t's 3G coverage map in the United States, and Verizon had five times times the at&t 3G network coverage.

This series of ads worked well, and at&t, under intense pressure, had to publicly respond to rival ads on the official web site and sued Verizon for misleading consumers, at&t that Verizon would at&t no 3G in advertising. The covered part is marked white, causing consumers to mistakenly assume that At&t has no Internet service in these areas, while in fact At&t has "slightly slower" services such as Edge in these areas. In the indictment, At&t admits that Verizon's series of ads has had a significant effect, losing a larger share of the market.

While suing, At&t also filmed two direct contrasting ads against Verizon, a show that at&t and Verizon network simultaneously downloaded a big picture of the body, at&t network quickly downloaded, and Verizon The network is slow to block and can only provide pictures without headers. This attacks Verizon's CDMA 2000 network theory at speeds lower than At&t's WCDMA network. In another advertisement, a man who answered the phone and used a mobile browser to get information online resolved a family crisis, attacking Verizon's 3G network format for not being able to simultaneously call and network browsing.

At&t and Verizon launched a series of verbal battles over these comparative ads, and one months later At&t withdrew the Verizon lawsuit. In this widely contested advertising campaign, both sides of the ads have caught the other side of the network and service defects, accurate positioning, production wonderful. Each has achieved a good market publicity effect.

failure Case: Microsoft Smoked by Windows Phone

Smoked by Windows Phone (defeated by Windows Phone) is a series of contrasting marketing campaigns that Microsoft started at the MWC Fair in early March this year at the end of February. Including network video advertising, exhibition Arena and store award-winning challenges such as a series of content. Microsoft lets Windows Phone system's phones and other handsets carry on some day-to-day tasks, and users who beat Windows Phone can get a laptop reward, while the Challenger defeated by Windows Phone phones will be with a "my phone being windows The phone beat "(My phone ethically got smoked by Windows Phone) for a photo and got a cellphone from a Windows Phone system."

Microsoft claims to have won more than 90% in the MWC Show and its stores ' challenge activities. But soon there was an unexpected storm.

A Galaxy Nexus user named Sahas Katta, who was "looking for weather in two places" in a competition with a Microsoft store clerk, completed the task before Windows phone because it had placed two weather panels in front of the mobile desktop and disabled the lock screen. However, Microsoft Clerks refused to admit Sahas's victory for various reasons. Sahas a complete account of the story on his blog, which was widely disseminated through social networking, technology media and forums, and eventually Microsoft apologized and rewarded Sahas. And the more insider of the challenge is being dug up further by the tech media, which is sensitive to smell.

Science and Technology media the editor of The Verge in the field after a challenge to find the challenge "almost all of the projects are designed to reflect the Windows Phone system for the integration of social networks and local search advantages of the design specifically, a few exceptions are available only to challengers who are holding outdated and slow equipment ”。 It is not surprising that Windows Phone won a one-sided victory in the challenge under such a project setting.

The Verge's further exclusive investigation also found that Microsoft had given employees training in advance to tell them what kind of challenge they should choose to ensure the KO rate of Windows Phone. These guidelines include:

When you encounter Android phone users, choose the "Weather Show" and "Check the movie theater broadcast Information" and so on the need to rely on Windows phone on the desktop real-time display information features to win the project, because the Android phone has desktop widget features, You can also display information on the desktop in real time after the appropriate settings. Be cautious when encountering a challenger who uses the IPhone 4S or HTC chacha to "upload photos to Facebook". Because the IPhone 4S camera is fast and can upload photos quickly, HTC Chacha has the physical Facebook key and the camera is starting fast. Avoid users who appear to be very senior when choosing "Send a message to Twitter and Facebook", because they may be able to post messages to Facebook at the same time by adding #fb tag behind the Twitter message. In addition, tools such as TweetDeck and Siri also have similar release information functions. Changing the challenge to "take a picture and use it to modify both Twitter and Facebook's Avatar" is a better chance.

To find out who the challenger is, Microsoft may even warn its employees to try to talk to the challenger before the game, figuring out how well their phone models, settings, and knowledge of their phones will be, and then choose a project with a greater chance of winning.

This information has been exposed to a variety of discussions, criticisms and pranks, and Microsoft has had to allow challengers to choose their own content in some places. This, in turn, has led to the "Android phone user win laptop" strategy similar to the following:

installs Yahoo weather software installs NoLock software to cancel the lock screen to install Softlocker free or similar software to prevent the cell phone from sleeping, in order to get faster wake-up speed in line to observe the people in front of the challenge "at the same time show the weather in both places" encountered in which two places, Secretly set the Yahoo weather to these two places and made a team to put on the desktop. When it comes to the challenge, choose "Show the weather at the same time" and then light the phone screen, and you win, the notebook prizes.

This huge controversy, while widening the profile of smoked by Windows Phone activity, has largely cracked the myth of Windows Phone's faster and better use, exposing its gimmick to the public. Smoked by Windows phone's activities have not been able to achieve the expected publicity, but instead of a lot of people simply want to change the new mobile phone to the game deliberately lost to get a new phone. Microsoft had to change the rules in the latest announcement of the postponement, offering only a new handset to the top 100 losers, and a 25 dollar coupon for the latter.

How to make comparison advertising effective? Select the core Advantage

Get A Mac ads, the designers choose the system stability, security, core software design and experience, and other recognized advantages, at&t for Verizon's comparative ads, caught is the Verizon 3G network inherent defects, that is, the theory is slow, not at the same time to maintain telephone and data connections, Verizon cannot refute these areas. Although Microsoft's Windows Phone has the features of social network integration, local search integration and so on, but these are not recognized as the core advantage of the competitor's products through a certain set and appropriate operation is easy to beat, the choice of the core advantage of the poor led to Microsoft's marketing activities on the ice, around the constraints.

Maintain fair competition

While using comparative advertising to emphasize the dominance of one's product, maintaining fairness in comparison is the basis for credibility. Get A MAC series selects generally accepted and uncontroversial comparisons, or quotes from technology media. One reason why At&t and Verizon have been in court for an ad is that at&t questioned Verizon's criteria for measuring network coverage and marking maps. Microsoft's smoked by Windows Phone, after refusing to acknowledge the Sahas victory, has made the lack of fairness known to all, severely damaging the credibility of the game.

Use the appropriate form

Get A mac ads use personification, with vibrant youth and sluggish middle-aged respectively for the MAC and the PC, so that the contrast between the two, at&t and Verizon's multiple ads tend to use everyday scenes and simple and easy to understand the map or text, Audiences are more receptive to this. While Microsoft's smoked by Windows Phone Marketing Campaign has chosen the easy and intuitive challenge of the ring, but the external spread is a large number of game video clips into a few lack of detail of the short film, as well as the release of simple statistics, the spread of the effectiveness and credibility is a significant weakening.

pay attention to PR coordination

Because of the inevitable involvement of rival products in comparative advertising, it is relatively easier to trigger the interactions between vendors and users. At this time good PR cooperation seems very important. After Sahas's use of Galaxy Nexus to defeat Windows Phone, Microsoft insists on a tough stance, even after the media exposure, smoked by the main catalyst for Windows Phone marketing campaign Ben Rudolph And how many, with a little insolence, "Please come again at random." Although Microsoft finally admitted the error and sent the prizes, but the lack of fairness in Microsoft's marketing campaign rules, the lack of sincerity of employees willing to gamble conceded that the impression has been spread beyond redemption.

via:http://www.geekpark.net/read/view/156172