Some time ago I saw a brand commercial produced by Pepsi. In the video, a kid tried to get drinks from a vending machine. He got two Coca-Cola and put them under his feet just to reach the higher button for the Pepsi Cola. Usually competition shown on television isn’t that blatant, so this commercial specifically got me thinking, is it ethical overshadow other brand by claiming the superiority of its own product?
The PepsiCo commercial clearly overshadows Coca-Cola’s popularity in children in that commercial, giving it a connotation by letting the boy walked away without the coca cola. According to a Businessihub post, “overshadowing a brand to increase the market penetration for one brand is considered as an unethical process by many.”
The two companies have been using manipulation and comparison advertising in recent television commercials in order to draw attention from a competitor’s brand to their own, which is a negative comparative advertising. There are obviously better ways to promote one’s product than to disparage others.
But there isn’t all downside on this situation. Even though the commercial made by both companies may seem unethical, by competing with each other in this way, both of the brands promote their brand names and become more well-known.
links:
pepsi, banded commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DijFob8vxgI
pepsi, summer time is pepsi time:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s21q2TL27Wc
I just finished reading the class 7 preparation reading on Positioning. What these two companies can do is to re-positioning the competitor by convincing the customer to view the competitor in a different way. Specifically, change the brand image of the other company to make itself more unique. But not use comparative advertising to simply convince one is better than the other, which is either ethical nor would the costumers be receptive to the tactic.