I feel the need to vent a little bit about one of my biggest “pet peeves”– I’m not really sure if that’s the way to classify this but that’s what I’m going with. I get so annoyed with advertisements that are centered around how one company is better than their competitior. Here are some examples:
- D. Gellar and Son – This one is top of the list! All of their advertisements seem to be trying to make fun of Shane Company and its spokesperson, Tom Shane. They come right out and try to make Shane Co. look bad with their imitations of Tom Shane and their making fun of Shane Co’s tag line. I get annoyed everytime I hear that commercial and because of this, I will never shop there nor do I ever want anyone to buy me something from there!
- Pepsi - I don’t know what commercials they’ve had on TV recently since I seem to only watch TV on my DVR where I fast forward through the commercials, but I do remember one of the famed Pepsi commercials where they were showing a Coke delivery guy drinking a Pepsi. That one stands out in my mind, however I know there have been more where they have intintentionally called Coke out and made reference to them in their advertisement on a quest to show that they are the “better brand”. Regardless of the advertising, however, I have always been and will always be a Coke drinker. I’m a native Atlantan and I love all things Coke– that alone makes me dislike Pepsi and the ads only seem to make it worse.
- Burger King – I feel they are always trying to compare the Whopper to the Big Mac to show how much better they are. It sometimes seems they can’t do a commercial– whether on the radio or TV without throwing McDonald’s name in there somehow. I have never liked Burger King (especially their fries) but this makes me really not like them.
- Altell Wireless – All of their commericals these days involve the Altell guy (Chad, I think) and his 4 “friends” who all represent the other wireless networks. Is the only way to promote yourself by making fun of your competition? Again, I hate this advertising and it makes me never want to join Altell. I am a huge advocate of Verizon so I probably wouldn’t entertain the idea anyway but this just confirms that for me.
I am sure there are countless others that I’ve forgot about here. I think all these companies should have enough confidence in their product where they can sell it for what it is and stop relying on these comparisons and essential trashing of the competition. Maybe for some people this marketing gimic makes them choose the product when they see how “bad” the competition is but for me– it makes me all the more willing to choose the other guy.
P.S. When trying to come up with a song title for this post, the only song that kept popping into my head is the little ditty “Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you.” I’m not even sure where that came from but this type of advertising makes me picture two little kids on the playground with one of them trying to taunt the other because they think they are so much better. So to all these companies that like to make fun of the competition in their advertising – grow up!
