Knowledge@wharton

John Zhang has a message for Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless or for that matter any company that uses its ads to attack a competitor. Instead of luring away your competitor’s customers you may just be hurting yourself. Zhang a Wharton marketing professor has found that combative ads -- the sort of comparative spots that beer makers particularly Anheuser-Busch and Miller are famed for -- may backfire. Instead of pulling consumers to an advertiser they may just make people indifferent to all offerings in a product category. ”Combative advertising a characteristic of mature markets is defined as advertising that shifts consumer preferences toward the advertising firm but does not expand the category demand ” Zhang says in his research paper titled ”A Theory of Combative Advertising.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.