As the economy takes a turn for the worse, what do companies have to do to stay in business? Attack their competitors, I guess. An article in the Wall Street Journal discusses how companies such as Campbell Soup and Burger King are going directly after Progresso and McDonald’s, respectively, in their newest ad campaigns. As quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Russ Klein, Burger King’s president of global marketing strategy, says this isn’t going to change any time soon. “With the current financial crisis looking like it is far from over, consumers can expect plenty more attack ads.”
Specifically, a poster ad for Campbell Soup displays a can of their Select Harvest brand next to Progresso. Above Campbell it says “Made with TLC,” while over Progresso is displayed “Made with MSG”. Do companies really have to go this far to make a profit? Patrick Doyle, president of Domino’s USA believes so. According to Doyle, “In a downturn, people are being more and more careful on how they are spending their money, and more than usual you have to make sure you are breaking through and giving them a reason to buy you.” As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Although the advertising industry is aggressive, you’d think there would be rules and regulations on attacking the competition. The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus is in charge of monitoring ads, and NAD reported the number of challenges they have seen against ad campaigns has increased significantly, about 50% from this time last year. Although researchers are claiming these advertisements are confusing consumers, they have also been found to be very popular, so I doubt we will see any changes soon. Besides, although NAD polices ads, they don’t have the power to force companies to revoke them.