So a couple of days ago, there was a dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica over the border of its territory. This dispute however, was not driven by a greedy government, but rather by an error from Google Maps.
As you can see, the two maps show a different border, hence the confusion. From the article I got this story from (here), they joked that “Bing’s next marketing strategy: Bing, the search engine that doesn’t cause international disputes.” So this got me thinking about campaigns where firms take shots at competitors to knock them down a few pegs. Is it ethical or effective? or does it just show a sign of weakness?
In this example…
we have the Cleveland Cavaliers (a basketball team) respond to a former player, Lebron James (who has been marketed crazily, with his own brand). To me, the video just makes the Cavaliers seem really bitter. If you’re a basketball fan, you’ll know what happened with Lebron’s “the Decision” and most people would agree that was quite stupid and unnecessary, but making response videos like the one above is just as unnecessary. It’s kinda sad to see the Cavaliers (who were quite irrelevant before the arrival of Lebron) try to tarnish the Lebron brand (ie. Witness –> Quitness).
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