Bashing the Competition Is Popular Trend in Television and Print Ads
Goading the competition hasn’t come cheaply for Nissan. But the car maker seems to think it was worth the price.
In mid-February, Nissan began running an ad campaign that promised to pay $100 to anyone who purchased a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry--but only after they test-drove a Nissan Stanza. That campaign finally ended yesterday. But not before Nissan shelled out more than $209,400 to 2,094 consumers who took them up on the so-called Stanza Challenge.
“We got a chance to talk directly to more than 2,000 people before they bought the cars they were probably going to buy anyway,” said Joe Fenton, national dealer support manager at Nissan. “We’re going to keep their names and addresses, and two years from now you can bet we’ll be talking to them again.”
Nissan, which says its Stanza sales nearly doubled during the two-month campaign, is one of the more aggressive companies to tweak the competition in advertisements recently. But these days, it has plenty of company. Pepsi is once again giving Coke a hard time. Rolaids is lowering the boom on Tums. Contac continues to knock Benadryl. Northwest Airlines claims its on-time performance is better than that of American Airlines. Volkswagen says its Fox model is more powerful than the Honda Civic. Toshiba computers is claiming superiority to archrival Compaq. Parkay is poking fun at Shedd’s Country Crock spread. And Home Depot is whaling away at Home Club.
Why is everyone so busy bashing everyone else in ads?
“In a tight economy, the instinct is to lash out at the competition,” said Stan Freberg, the outspoken adman and president of Beverly Hills-based Stan Freberg Ltd. “When some companies get desperate, they want to kick the competition in the mouth. And ad agencies tend to feed on these paranoias of their clients.”
Concurs James K. Agnew, executive vice president at J. Walter Thompson/West: “Hard times and shrinking ad budgets often make for short-term considerations.”
Executives say this sort of advertising goes in cycles. “For years, no one did it because it seemed so ungentlemanly,” said Bruce Silverman, president of Asher/Gould Advertising. “Besides, it flies in the face of what most consumers like. They don’t like negativity.”
Yet comparative advertising really took off in the mid-’70s when the Federal Trade Commission actually began to encourage it. The FTC felt that consumers would ultimately benefit. Now, some executives say it often leads to confusion. Silverman, for example, points to the recent soft drink commercial that features blind singer Ray Charles sitting at a piano, taking a sip of some cola and then complaining that someone switched soft drink cans on him.
“For the life of me, I can’t remember who paid for that commercial,” Silverman said. (Answer: Diet Pepsi).
Of course, some advertisers remain strong supporters of comparative advertising.
Nissan, for example, says it is naming competitors so that consumers will begin to think of its newly designed Stanza in the same breath as Accord and Camry. “We’ve watched others try to get into that segment unsuccessfully,” Fenton said. “We want to do more than knock on the door. We want to get in.”
Meanwhile, Toshiba recently ran a print ad that directly compared the screen and keyboard on its newest personal computer to that of rival Compaq. Toshiba ran the ad because its personal computer, which was introduced months later than Compaq’s, kept testing so well in market research, said Bill Johnson, vice president of the Toshiba’s America’s computer system division. When Toshiba sales people make presentations to Fortune 500 companies, they now take both the Toshiba and Compaq models with them and let the customers compare themselves.
Northwest Airlines says it is just trying to correct a false impression.
“We thought it was pretty bold of American Airlines to christen themselves the ‘on-time machine’ in their ads,” said Douglas Miller, manager of media relations at Northwest Airlines. Northwest is running print ads claiming that its performance has beaten American’s for three straight months. “Our strategy is to make the airline traveling public aware of just how the airlines are performing,” Miller said.
Similarly, Home Depot claims that it is trying to clear up confusion--certainly not cause any.
Some of its latest ads feature testimonials from Home Depot customers who claim that they have stopped shopping at Home Club in favor of Home Depot. “We think consumers were getting confused about the difference between Home Club and Home Depot,” said Lonnie Fogel, public relations director at Atlanta-based Home Depot, the home improvement chain. More specifically, he said, the company was responding to Home Club ads that Home Depot officials felt were questioning the “friendliness” of Home Depot salespeople.
But what about consumers who might confuse these commercial messages? “I don’t think the message is confusing,” Home Depot’s Fogel said. “But if we should find out that it is,” he admitted, “we can always try something else.”
Rubin Postear to Create Disney Channel Spots
It is the ad agency that gave the American public a peek at the Stealth Bomber long before Uncle Sam did. And more recently, it drove a Honda car off an art gallery wall.
That kind of commercial fantasy, which it created for American Honda, finally helped Los Angeles-based Rubin Postear & Associates attract the king of fantasy: Disney. Last week, Rubin Postear won the $4-million to $5-million account to create ads for the Disney Channel.
Although the agency will create broadcast and print ads, the commercial time and space will continue to be purchased by Western Media International. Is Rubin Postear prepared to handle the likes of Mickey Mouse? Replied GerroldRubin, president of the agency, with a smirk, “We’re still a little green in the ears.”
Ad Agencies to Hear Talk on Environment
Earth Day may be over, but when the Western States Advertising Agencies Assn. holds its 40th annual conference May 3-6 in La Quinta, the environment will be the chief topic.
In fact, Denis Hayes, chairman and founder of Earth Day, will be a featured speaker. And he plans to talk to the 250 ad executives expected to attend about his next project, “Green Seal.” That project is his attempt to persuade manufacturers to make environmentally responsible products. And he says agencies must sometimes push manufacturers to do that.
Also, the Western States Advertising Partnership will unveil a new public service ad campaign specifically created to get people to pay more attention to the environment. The slogan for that campaign is “Reduce, reuse, recycle.”
“We’re running out of landfill,” said Robert Kresser, chairman of the Los Angeles agency Kresser/Craig and chairman of this year’s conference. “If we don’t do something pretty soon, instead of the Golden State we’ll be the Garbage State.”
New Line Cinema Puts Account Up for Review
The small film company that gave the world “Teen-age Mutant Ninja Turtles” is putting its $25-million to $35-million media-buying account up for review. New Line Cinema has seen its motion picture gross almost $100 million at the box office in four weeks.
Although the incumbent firm, New York-based Independent Media Service, is still in the running, New Line has included at least four agencies with Los Angeles offices in its review. Among them: Della Femina, McNamee WCRS; J. Walter Thompson and D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles.
“We’re not unhappy,” said Sandra J. Ruch, New Line’s marketing president. “We’re just casting our nets a little further.” She said New Line is considering hiring an agency that not only buys commercial time but also also can help create ads.
The film company, which has already signed on 300 licensees, is in the preliminary planning stages of a second “Turtle” film.
“The success is terrifying,” said Ruch, who admits she keeps an Teen-age Mutant Ninja Turtle electric toothbrush in her family bathroom. “We can’t seem to get the merchandise out fast enough.”
