In the advertising world there
are small wars that go on between companies to try to appeal their product to
consumers. Some companies choose to directly reference their competitors and degrade
their competing products. One of the most commonly known battles that use this
approach is between Pepsi and Coca cola, who battle using global advertisements like print ads and video ads, trying to lead
each other. But these two are not the only ones, car companies are also well known
for bashing each other. It is no surprise that the car brands are
referencing each other in advertisements as they exist in a fiercely
competitive market where an edge in anything could directly affect the sales of
that car, whether it be engines, appearance, or name value. I came across an ad war between BMW and Audi (http://piximus.net/vehicles/advertising-war-between-car-brands#13) that I found to be interesting.
In the article, there are different ads that each either promote
their brands strong points such as winning the car of the year, or having the
greatest appearance, engines, or just degrading other brands, such as the
picture show, BMW and Audi each trying to show the deficiencies of the other
cars.
Audi and BMW both respond to each other’s attack with similar
approaches, in this case going car for car, presenting their best car that they
feel can compete with the others car accompanied by a phrase that responds to
the others ad. An example of this is shown on billboard ads that depict a
vehicle and a chess reference phrase that responds to the previous ad by the
competitor.
Another
article I came across on Forbes went into describing this ad and how the war
has escalated to now. “Case in point the latest “billboard war.” It started
cheekily enough with Audi, fueled with bratwurst and bravado, posting an ad for
its new A4 with the headline: “Your Move, BMW.”
These
advertisements can hardly be called “friendly competition” but it is still a
healthy competition as the companies are each showing their points of
differences for the customers in a funny attractive way. I notice that they are
both using the ad hominem fallacy, which is commonly used in persuasion, because
they attack each other instead of their position, being gaining more consumers
and keeping their current consumers through creative marketing.
Works Cited:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robschwartz/2012/01/29/audi-vs-bmw-the-war-escalates/
http://piximus.net/vehicles/advertising-war-between-car-brands#13
