What Is Comparative Advertising?

Did you recognize that the typical American sees over 5,000 ads per day? That’s an incredible amount of content to compete with, especially if you’re running a little business or a replacement startup.

To stand out, you want to clearly communicate to consumers what’s so great about your products and why they’re superior to competitor models.

One strategy by which to do this is often comparative advertising. It requires a touch of finesse, so before you add comparative advertising to your marketing strategy, here’s a rundown of how it works

An Overview of Comparative Advertising

Comparative advertising means directly comparing your product to a rival’s product to point out why your item is best.

Is it okay to follow another brand like this? Sure. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) permits companies to use this marketing strategy (within limits, which we’ll talk about) for 3 reasons:

Comparisons encourage healthy competition within the marketplace.

Clear, verifiable comparisons help customers make more informed buying choices.

Criticism encourages brands to up their game and innovate, which benefits all consumers.

Comparative advertising works best when you’re making specific, measurable comparisons. For instance, you would possibly use comparative ads to point out things like:

• the enhanced features your product has compared to its rival

• price differences between goods

• the results of a blind taste test showing people can’t tell the difference between your product and a costlier name brand

Comparative marketing yields positive results for several businesses. For one thing, over 51% of consumers report disliking uninformative ads. It’s an honest thing comparative ads are informative naturally, then.

Additionally, visual ads often draw more attention, and comparative ads are highly visual.

Comparative Advertising vs. Competitive Advertising

Comparative and competitive advertising are similar, but they’re not equivalent.

With comparative advertising, you present a product as better than a competitor’s version of an equivalent (or very similar) item. You could explicitly name the competitor or imply who they're and which product you’re pertaining to.

There are three hallmarks of a comparative ad:

• advertises one product

• identifies a minimum of one specific quality the merchandise has over its rivals

• provides evidence to copy claims

Competitive advertising is more general. Instead of promoting a selected product, you’re trying to influence consumers to settle on your overall brand over your competitors.

Nowadays, companies are making the news for his or her unique takes on advertising. Take Wendy’s, for instance. Wendy’s restaurants pride themselves on never using frozen meat. They create a billboard mocking a selected McDonald’s burger, the large Mac, but the main target is Wendy’s overall brand values.

In other words, they don’t specifically compare their own burger to their competitors to point out why it’s better—they don’t mention their products in the least. This implies the ad is competitive, not comparative.

4 Best Practices for Comparative Advertising

There’s no “right” formula for comparative advertising success, but here are some practices i feel you ought to bear in mind before you design your ad.

1. Keep Comparative Ads Lighthearted

The best comparative ads are fun. They don’t take themselves too seriously.

2. Be Clear about Which Brand is Yours

If you propose using comparative advertising, always make it clear which brand or product is yours.

First, you can’t use comparative advertisements to confuse or otherwise mislead your customers. If it’s unclear which product is yours, you risk giving your customers a misunderstanding.

Second, it’s hard for several customers to inform the difference between some products to start with.

3. Support Your Claims

You must be able to copy all claims you create. The evidence you would like varies, but here are some examples:

• blind taste test results

• scientific studies

• research results

• verifiable comparisons, e.g., price matches and ingredient lists

Think about it this manner. If a user reaches out on Twitter and asks you to prove your claims, how does it look if you can’t provide them with any evidence?

Let me show you what happens when it all goes wrong, and you can’t copy your assertions.

First, false advertising can cost you both financially and in customer trust.

4. Steer beyond Comparisons with Smaller Brands

Generally speaking, it’s okay for smaller brands to poke a touch fun at a bigger company because the larger company features a competitive advantage.

It doesn’t necessarily work the other way, though. If you compare yourself to a smaller company, here’s what might happen.

• There’s an opportunity you’ll introduce your customers to a brand they didn’t realize.

• People love underdogs. Make your rivals appear as if the underdog, and you'll lose customers.

• You could appear as if a bully who’s going after the “little guy.”

Remember, comparative advertising is merely one digital marketing strategy. It’s not for everybody, so weigh up the pros and cons before running comparative ads.

Interested?

Designate has consistently increased conversion rates for its clients by engaging the most sophisticated metrics and tools to acquire, engage, and convert target audiences across domains. Get in touch to know how we can boost your ROIs.

We’d like to get to understand you.