Comparative advertising is the practice of either directly or indirectly naming competitors in an ad and comparing one or more specific attributes. This form of advertising became popular after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) began advocating its use in 1972. The FTC reasoned that direct comparison of brands would provide better product information, giving consumers a more rational basis for making purchase decisions. Television networks cooperated with the FTC by lifting their ban on comparative ads, and the result was a flurry of comparative commercials. Initially, the novelty of comparative ads resulted in greater attention. But since they have become so common, their attention-getting value has probably declined. Some studies show that recall is higher for comparative than noncomparative messages, but comparative ads are generally not more effective for other response variables, such as brand attitudes or purchase intentions. Advertisers must also consider how comparative messages affect credibility. Users of the brand being attacked in a comparative message may be especially skeptical about the advertiser’s claims.
Comparative advertising may be particularly useful for new brands, since it allows a new market entrant to position itself directly against the more established brands and to promote its distinctive advantages. Direct comparisons can help position a new brand in the evoked, or choice, set of brands the customer may be considering.
Comparative advertising is often used for brands with a small market share. They compare themselves to an established market leader in hopes of creating an association and tapping into the leader’s market. For example, Savin Corp. used comparative ads for a number of years that were aimed directly at Xerox, the market leader in the copier industry. The campaign was very effective in convincing decision makers at small and mid-size companies that Savin should be considered as an alternative to Xerox as well as other copier companies such as Canon, Konica, and Mita . Market leaders, on the other hand, often hesitate to use comparison ads, as most believe they have little to gain by featuring competitors’ products in their ads. There are exceptions, of course; Coca-Cola resorted to comparative advertising in response to challenges made by Pepsi that were reducing Coke’s market share. Another area where comparative messages are quite commonly used is political advertising. Political advertising is viewed as an important component of political speech and thus enjoys more First Amendment protection than commercial speech and less regulation by either government or self-policing agencies. Thus, it has become quite common for political ads to contain negative, one-sided attacks on an opposing candidate’s weaknesses such as character flaws, voting record, public misstatements, broken promises, and the like. The goal of these ads is to discredit the character, record, or position of an opponent and create doubt in voters’ minds about his or her ability to govern effectively. A major reason why negative political ads are used successfully is that voters often tend to weight negative information more heavily than positive information when forming impressions of political candidates. However, studies have shown that the use of “attack advertising” by politicians can result in negative perceptions of both candidates.