I am currently doing a research project on how comparative advertising is perceived by different cultures. Being very common in the US, we know of prime examples such as the ads for the Sega Genesis, the Atari XE and the Sega Saturn (click to watch). By telling us that Nintendo sucks balls, Sega tried to leverage their own quality - how do you perceive such strategy? Calling Nintendo "Pretendo", shooting an N64 to pieces, throwing a PlayStation off the Empire State Building - is it really okay to do this in advertising or do you feel Sega is behaving unethically towards the other companies? In addition to starting a discussion about how you perceive the ethics of such advertising, I would like to ask you to fill out a very short survey that would greatly benefit me and my team's project! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Qn7Gjqkii25sbki8HK6JpYAYO1HTrAr9_iOUEI1H0vo/viewform Thank you! I am from Germany, and comparative advertising is frowned upon by the consumer. It has also been outlawed since the year 2000! Personally, I find the ways SEGA advertised their products quite off-putting and sometimes even disgusting (e.g. shooting the N64 and calling it "Pretendo"). Nintendo didn't have to do that, neither did Sony, and considering that SEGA was never market leader, calling the others "Pretendo" while themselves having an unsuccessful Saturn at hand that didn't deliver what they promised is really ridiculous. Comparative advertising, to me, always has the smell of the inferior trying to bash the market leader with unethical insults. My opinion is that if you really did have such a great product, you would not need to put others down in order to prove its benefits.
Comparative advertising is American culture. You can't blame Sega since everyone does it in the states. The first one I remember was Coca Cola VS Pepsi where even a monkey could tell the difference. In fact maybe Coke ansd Pepsi started the whole comparative advertising battle? In the UK I don't remember seeing such adds. It would always be name brand vs un-named brand. Not even a hint to what the un-named brand was.
yeah it didnt happen so much in this part of the world it's always "vs unnamed brand" or "the next leading brand" i think theres some advertising laws that come into play to stop them doing that perhaps but I'm no expert. As for that kind of advertising and what i think of it? i have no problem with it, it works on how most peoples brains work, politicians use the same tactics. "look how crap these guys are, pfft noobs, vote for us! we're slightly less crap!" i even enjoy that kind of advertising i enjoy the direct competitiveness of it. what i hate is what microsoft and nintendo are doing with the whole "yay! look all these random generic "perfect" example people are having so much fun with big smiley faces" << can't stand that bullshit, makes me want to projectile vomit.
It was rad in the day, a big FU to the kids in the nintendo and sony camps Today its kind of lame, not so much because sega is gone but because these ads are too "Xtreme" in a 90s way That and tech ads today are friendly smiley bullshit
That video reminded me of the user who has "SATURN >>> PS1 + N64" as a tag. Anyway, I thought this was outlawed on most countries?
The referral to existing brand names (e.g. "iPhone is better than Windows Phone") is outlawed in a few countries, with the most prominent exception being the United States where it is still very common practice. However, more subtle forms of comparative advertising that compare and degrade other brands without mentioning their names are still very common, for example this hilarious ad by a French car manufacturer:
That is still comparative advertising even if it is "outlawed" but it is Nationalistic rather than brand V brand.
There used to be lots of ads like that, but not so much recently. They seem to have gone out of style. The last one I can remember were the Mac vs. Windows ads that Apple made. I can't think of another one since then, though.
Comcast and Microsoft are still running aggressive comparative advertising campaigns as we speak (Surface vs. iPad, XFINITY vs. Verizon).
Yea but its not to the same level as the older ads I honestly don't like it because like OP said if your product is so great then you wouldn't be making such obviously desperate marketing
Good point, I forgot about those. I think the Comcast ones are against AT&T, though. Verizon and Comcast are partners. Those weren't really comparative, though. I'm thinking of the ones with John Hodgman and Justin Long. Interesting thing I noticed from the Wikipedia page about those ads: apparently they were shown in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and Japan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Mac So you can't lay this all on the US. (Although they were made by an American ad agency)
Of course not, especially the one with Hitler in it. Funny part was that John Hodgman is not only a college graduate and Mac user but he isn't a complete tool like Justin Long is. And yet the tool is the Mac.
Yeah, those commercials really irritated me, despite the fact that I'm a Mac user and I like John Hodgman. It felt like they were just hitting you over the head with their message. Then again, most Apple ads are like that.
