Is it me or has there been an increase in the use of negative marketing recently?
Negative marketing is simply marketing yourself by making your competition look bad or inferior. It’s an interesting way of promoting yourself, for sure, and carries a not insignificant element of risk with it.
Whilst the depth of the derision of the competition may well vary, it’s a proven way of marketing with success. For example, politicians use negative marketing constantly. There’s rarely a day goes by where you don’t hear one politician referring to another party’s alleged inadequacies.
In terms of products, you may have noticed a recent spate of advertisements by Aldi, within which they compare some of their own branded products with major branded ones – Tea bags was one such advertisement. Until recently, they weren’t allowed to do this – the law stated like must be compared to like. However, recent changes to the law brought about by the European Commission have deemed it “in the public’s interests” to allow such marketing to be undertaken and it would seem Aldi have grasped the nettle, so to speak!
Now, whilst it seems acceptable to deride your competition, what about self-derision? Pointing out your own bad side to self-promote is an equally interesting way of marketing and carries different yet similarly damaging risks! If done correctly, however, it too can prove successful. Take the recent Go Compare adverts, for instance. Annoying from the off, they certainly stuck in your mind. Did they cause you to visit their website? Probably? Possibly? Or avoid at all costs? I’d be interested to see those statistics! Nevertheless, the next step in their campaign would appear to be that of self-derision….. They seem to know their advert is annoying, so have decided to change their tack by openly admitting that and creating a new one based around that admittance. Clever…..what do you think?
Well, I have to say that we at Data Bubble aren’t about to set off on a national negative marketing campaign. Our focus remains on displaying our positives such as customer service and data quality. We have built our brand around it and we’ll stick to that ………. At least for now, anyway!
