How Brands Reply to Poking Competitors

It was the year of 1975 when Pepsi decided to check the ground reality and make people realize that they like Pepsi more than Coca Cola. The famous campaign was called 'The Pepsi Challenge' and it was one-of-its-kind blind taste challenge. A representative would set up a booth in a mall or a shopping centre, pour two white glasses with Pepsi and Coke respectively and ask people to take a sip from both the white cups. The sweeter taste was a hit and Pepsi came with a survey insight that more Americans prefer Pepsi over Coke.

For whoever took the challenge, Pepsi representative handed them a promotional Pepsi can and a metal tab button to promote the campaign. Coke was not behind and started distributing metal badges with the text "I picked Coke in the Pepsi Challenge"

This story brings an interesting debate in marketing -- Does it pay to have a presence of mind, coupled with a sense of humour?

In this blog, we have a few marketing comebacks from competitors that stole the show and created new brand fans.

Luxury war

With this cheeky billboard, Audi challenged BMW to show that they have better cars in luxury sedan segment. Soon, BMW came with a reply and it escalated with a couple of more replies.

This was the sequence of the jabs -

Audi: Your move, BMW.

BMW: Checkmate.

Audi: Your pawn is no match for our king.

BMW: Game over.

Glass or Chalice?

Newcastle, a British based Brown Ale brewery, took a little different approach. Newcastle decided to pick on Stella Artois by exploiting the word “Chalice” used on Stella’s popular print ads that have “It’s a chalice, not a glass” written on them. The Newcastle billboard just says “Who uses the word ‘Chalice’?”, and is placed under the Stella Artois billboard. At the bottom of the pint ad, “No bollocks” phrase is written to point out that beer ads usually convey irrelevant messages.

Logistics war

Logistics and delivery competitors, FedEx and DHL, went against each other via what defines them, the trucks that do the job. FedEx creatively painted its truck and said ‘FedEx Always First’, a direct take at DHL’s brand colour.

However, DHL took the opportunity to talk about how people are fed up with the two brands - FedEx and UPS.

Burger war

Known for their dominance in the fast-food market, McDonald’s and Burger King are commonly known as forever rivals. However, McDonald’s is comparatively more widespread with a larger number of stores. The battle started when McDonald’s launched a billboard talking about how a McDonald’s brand was just 5Kms ahead while a Burger King store was 258Kms ahead.

However, Burger King wasn’t going to let it go, it launched it’s own response campaign too, crediting McDonald’s for giving its customer relief before they travel the mile to reach Burger King. These ad battles called ‘burger wars’ haven’t stopped amusing customers for a while now.

Conclusion

Brands can be very competitive at times with comparative ads. However, they are forbidden from pointing out competitor brand's flaw by explicitly mentioning brand's trademark entities such as name, slogan etc. That is why most companies target competitor brand's characteristics which are not legally registered. For example, that’s how Samsung created the “Next Big Thing Is Already Here” campaign focusing on the hype that can unmistakably be connected to its main competitor Apple iPhone and all the prejudice that accompanies it.

While a really smart comparative ad can give you good social media mileage, there's a good chance that it can backfire too. Also, comparative ads may bring attention to your competitors at your marketing expense.

Do you see comparative advertisements as a smart strategy? What is your preferred/favorite advertisement strategy? Tell us in the comment box below.

• Topic Participants

• Vinit Tibrewal

  

• Sticky Posts

• 10 simple e-commerce marketing tips to boost sales

  Congratulations! You've finally set up that e-commerce store you've been thinking about for a long time. Hopefully it wasn't too difficult. Even if it was, the effort will be totally worth it when you start seeing some orders come through. Now that the store is live, let's take a look at some marketing tips you can apply for sales growth. 1. Avoid cart abandonment If you've ever shopped online, you might have added a product to the cart but then decided not to purchase it. This is known as cart abandonment.

• Marketing in a post COVID-19 world!

  Consumers across countries are increasingly spending more time on a wide variety of digital activities, right from online grocery shopping, to video conferencing, to tele-medicine. There is a good chance that you performed one or more of the following activities during this lockdown, thanks to COVID 19: Cooked a meal Made a TikTok Video Signed up for a remote learning session Consulted a doctor online (or ordered medicines online) Shopped for groceries online A study by Hunter, a food and beverage

• Inbound Marketing 101: The Foundational Blocks of Inbound Marketing Strategy

  According to a behaviour survey, 68% of the buyers use sources such as blogs to evaluate the product even before considering it. Before buying a product, we do a lot of research to learn more about the product through communities, blogs, social media,

• How Zylker doubled their webinar registrations!

  Webinars are good educational resources to gather qualified leads for your product. But what if your visitors are dropping off from your webinar landing page without signing up? What more could you do to convert visitors into registrants? This is the

• The ideology behind why features tell, but benefits sell

  Do you think there's any truth to this? Do features only tell, and benefits sell?  Well, let's see why we should focus on benefits rather than features as the great marketing wizards, David Ogilvy and Steve Jobs proved to be the best examples leveraging

• Recent Topics

• Reload page with widget

  Hi all, I hope I can find some help here. I developed a small widget for Creator that is integrated into a page as a component. The page contains other content as well. When the widget is sent, the entire page should be reloaded to apply the changes to

• Tip of the week #37 - Manage all your Telegram business conversations directly from your shared inboxes.

  Tired of switching between multiple apps to manage your business conversations? With Zoho TeamInbox's multichannel inboxes, connect your Telegram channel to a shared inbox. This way, your teams can easily handle c View, reply, and collaborate on them

• Tags on notes aren't syncing correctly on Android

  I've created notes on the desktop version that have several tags assigned, but on both my Android devices those notes only have ONE of those tags instead of all of them, despite the actual content of the note being correctly synced, and I'm also starting

• Reports - custom layout - duplicate report

  Do you also have this problem and what is the possible solution? I duplicate a report that has a "custom layout". Unfortunately the custom layout is not duplicated. To be improved for a future release by Zoho. I export the custom layout and import it...

• How to map a global picklist from one module to another

  Hi there, i currently have a new field that is called sales office which we use for permission settings between our different offices located in different countries. It is a global set picklist with three different options: MY, SG and VN. I want to be

• Pageless mode needed to modernise Writer

  When we switched from GSuite to Zoho, one of the easiest apps I found to give up, was Docs. In many ways, Writer has always been more powerful than Docs, especially in terms of workflows/fillable forms/etc. However, I went back into Docs because I notice

• Changing the Logo Size on Zoho Sites

  My company logo incorporates both an image and text, and I would like it to be much more prominent on the page than is currently allowed by the small logo box in the template.  Is there any way to hide the page name and then make the logo box much bigger since my company name and logo are connected / are all in one file?  Thank you. 

• Is it possible to Select Item Serial Numbers from a Sales Order?

  Our accepted estimates are converted to Sales orders for our warehouse staff to pick.  How can my warehouse staff select the serial numbers for an item when editing a Sales Order?  Logically when staff pull an item and have the serial in front of them they update the Sales Order and select the serial. I understand a serial can be added when creating an invoice but how can accounts team know the serial if the warehouse staff can't select it! A basic flaw!

• MORE BUGS: Client Script, Deluge and Widget JS SDK don't work as expected when trying to retrieve a record that has been "rejected" as part of an approval process.

  Client Script $Page.record is null when accessing a record that has been "rejected" as part of an approval process. Deluge zoho.crm.getRecordById(moduleName, recordId) returns {"status":"failure"} when recordId is a valid, but rejected record. OK... I

• Zoho CRM Widget not displaying 2 related lists (JS)

  Okay so I basically have 2 relatedLists that I want to get and render: ZOHO.CRM.API.getRelatedRecords({ Entity: data.Entity, RecordID: data.EntityId, RelatedList: "Notes", page: 1, per_page: 200, }) ZOHO.CRM.API.getRelatedRecords({ Entity: data.Entity,

• Zoho Books and Zoho Projects Task Status Update

  How can we create an automation using custom functions for the following scenario. When our zoho books invoice status changes to paid. I want a task in Zoho projects to change to completed.

• Default Sort Order in Project Tasks View

  It should be possible to specify a default sort order (or have the last explicit sort order restored upon reload) for the tasks in the project tasks view. Currently the sort order must be manually re-selected for each sub-group whenever any changes are

• Assigning Tasks and Requests to Groups... how do I?

  Guys, I've spent many hours exploring Zoho Support and we are generally satisfied with the system.  I'm trying to understand how a system that has so much to offer can be missing GROUP assignment and queue functionality.  I am hoping that there is a way

• Parsing of SQL query failed. Please check the SQL syntax.

  I am trying to have Zoho Analytics recognize that if the a Deal is in Stage "Need Docs" it should also be counted as a Deal in the Stage "New Lead" /*New Lead*/ SELECT "ID" 'New Lead' AS "Stage" From "Deals" Where "Stage" = 'Need Docs' Union All Error

• Where is the setting to enable/disable 2FA?

  The following links show where enable/disable 2FA is supposed to appear, but neither appear for me: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/zohosites/faq/account/articles/how-do-i-enable-or-disable-two-factor-authentication-for-my-account shows Security >

• How to Assign Record Ownership in a Custom Form via API?

  Hello everyone, I’ve created a custom form in Zoho People and I’m using the API to manage its records. I would like to know how I can assign ownership of these records to specific users via the API. Is there a specific parameter or field in the API request

• Customer Statement Template not matching when sending

  Hi everyone! So when I send statements to our customers via Zoho Books, the message that appears by default does not match what I have written on the template Under settings -> email notifications -> sales -> customer statement We have a single default

• Working with keywords

  Hello everyone, first time here so I will try to be brief. I am working on my company's data set. I have a table with all the images we have on line. For each image we hava a cell tha contains all keywords related to that image. I would like to explore

• Peppol Malaysia API

  Hi Zoho Books, my country Malaysia will going to implement "Peppol" (E-Invoicing), starting 1 Jul 2025 for all businesses. The government intends to provide API for accounting app. The workflow involves creating an invoice from accounting app, triggers

• Re-emitir facturas con nueva dirección de facturación

  Hola, necesito saber si es posible que las facturas ya emitidas, pueden ser re-emitidas con el cambio de dirección de facturación, realizado el día de hoy 02-01-2025, para efectos contables. Espero su ayuda, Gracias

• Zoho Learn vs. Trainer Central

  Hi, I'm currently using Zoho One with a WordPress-based website and WooCommerce to manage my online courses. I would like to know what is the difference between Zoho Learn and Trainer Central and if it's possible for these two platforms to replace WP

• Map Plan to Different Income Account for Some Subscriptions via API

  We have a plan that has a default Plan Account of "Sales". Can we override the account for a specific subscription via API? In some instances the same exact plan should map to a different income account. When we create stand-alone invoices in Zoho Books,

• Flow with CRM

  Hello, I have a simple flow that uses a web hook to enter data into a Sales Order. I have the web hook sending Flow data which has a PO field. If the PO has a special character like - or / or \ the task fails. How can I get the flow to be okay with the

• Chrome browser issues. Anyone else?

  I am suddenly having multiple issues with Chrome browser interpreting the Zoho Mail interface.  Anyone else?  Any known problems? Thanks, Todd

• Zoho Payroll US?

  Good morning, just reaching out today to see if there's any timeline, or if there's progress being made to bring Zoho Payroll out to be available to all states within the USA. Currently we're going through testing with zoho, and are having issues when

• Set up multiple IMAP email addresses

  Hi, I just started using CRM and its great, but I just found out I can only add one imap email address for incoming mail in the included salesinbox ...this is ridiculous. All companies have different email such as sales@domain, info@domain , personal@domain

• Function 58: Custom calculation in item table of invoices (2 fields)

  Hello everyone, and welcome back to our series! In Zoho Books, the Item Amount in invoices is calculated by multiplying the Quantity and Rate fields. Previously, we shared a function to include a custom field in this calculation. Today, we are taking

• Tracking new lead response time

  Hi, I have a team of Sales Development Reps, who have a KPI of responding to a lead within 20 mins or less once it hits the system.  I seem to recall that Zoho CRM had the capability to track this in a previous version, but don't see it anywhere.   It's

• Pushing Data from One CRM account to another.

  We have business partners that want to collaborate through the CRM. Other than pre-planned data migrations what are the options for Zoho Users to transfer data between the accounts. For instance, could I create a webhook that is sent from our CRM and then is picked up in the partner's Flow?

• Search function not working anymore

  Hi! The search function is not working anymore. How can we solve this problem?

• When converting a lead to an account, the custom mandatory fields in the account are not treated by zoho as mandatory

  In my Account module I have a number of custom fields that I have set as mandatory. When I enter a new customer as a new account they work, I can't save the record without populating them. However when I convert a lead, my CRM users are able to save the

• Expand Zia's Language Support and AI Capabilities

  Dear Zoho Desk Support, I would like to submit a feature request to improve Zia, the AI-driven support assistant in Zoho Desk. Currently, Zia only supports the English language, while other AI agents such as Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude can work with a

• get gettting the days number between two dates with deluge

  I am trying to calculate the days number between 2 specific dates but its not working. PLease help me.

• Limit excceding issue in zoho creator

  I am transferring data from Zoho Books to Zoho Creator using a Deluge script. However, I am frequently encountering a "limit exceeding error," which seems to be related to the Deluge statements limit. I reached out to Zoho Support, and they informed me

• How do I add more schedules to Zoho Creator?

  At the moment, the number of schedule calls we have in Zoho Creator are 1800 per month and I was wondering if it was possible to upgrade that amount to something higher. I'd like to know my options as well as the pricing.

• Conexion CREATOR x CRM

  Buenas tardes, Tengo un problema con un código que crea un registro en CRM. Revisé el CRM para eliminar los campos obligatorios, pero cuando ejecuto el programa, aparece el siguiente mensaje de error: {"code":"MANDATORY_NOT_FOUND","details":{"api_name":"data"},"message":"required

• Invoices with billable time and expenses

  I cannot seem to get a straight answer. We are looking to create an invoice to send to our clients, but it needs to have the following on it: 1. Billable hours for each employee. All hours for the pay period on one line, by employee. 2. Expenses for each

• Search Bar Improvement for Zoho Commerce

  Hey everyone, I've been using Zoho Commerce for a bit now, and I think the search bar could really use an upgrade. Right now, it doesn't show products in a dropdown as you type, which would make finding items a lot faster. On Shopify, for example, you

• Send Whatsapp with API including custom placeholders

  Is is possible to initiate a session on whatsapp IM channel with a template that includes params (placeholders) that are passed on the API call? This is very usefull to send a Utility message for a transactional notification including an order number

• Can't get form response to populate custom PDF template

  I've created a template and set it to default but can't figure out how to get the response to populate that template. It keeps giving me the default summary.

• Next Page