Brand New Smackdown

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: the consumer, the competition benefits the most. Reliance Communications’ Sanjay Behl says, “An overt comparative advertising must be done in a good taste without looking down on competitive offerings. A dash of humor goes a long way in making it effective.”

Pranesh Misra, chairman and managing director, Brandscapes Worldwide Consultancy, explains the point with a very simple example: “I was very interested in Sun Direct when I first saw the TV ad, which talked about the Rs 499 pricing. But when I saw the print ad, which also said I have to pay installation fee of Rs 1,000 in fine print, which is non-refundable, my reaction was, what’s the real benefit to me? The price works out to be the same as that of the rival. This is clever advertising but not based on facts. In short, that’s not the way to do it.”

But if done well, comparative ads pay well, points out Sanjay Behl of Reliance Communications. “Reliance BIG TV has garnered 40%-plus share of the new subscribers every month, consistently since launch. This is despite addition of new competitors and enhanced competitive activity since the launch of BIG TV,” he adds.

“If you have a category where the competition is clearly defined in a strategic way, attack advertising is signal to the users of a competitive product,” Misra of Brandscapes adds. “When Pepsodent says that the ‘leading toothpaste’ does not have ingredient X, it’s a way to shake up consumers loyal to Colgate.” In most cases, a market leader will try and ignore any rival. So Coke will never make any reference to any drink, let alone Pepsi. The task is left to Thums Up, and at times Sprite, which seem to wait for Pepsi commercials so that they can spoof them. If Coke were to take potshots at Pepsi it would be acknowledging the competition and, in the process, become just another contender to the crown.