Of late, According to a report, there are 500k brands worldwide. Every brand performs different marketing activities to survive as a brand. For this reason, it seems like a cold war between the brands. One brand humiliates another brand to promote itself, called Brand War. Again some brand does their marketing negatively, which is called Negative Marketing.
iPhone and Samsung
Nowadays, iPhone and Samsung are dominating the more innovative industry. According to International Data Corporation or IDC, in the second quarter of 2022, Samsung is in the top position with 21.8 per cent. In contrast, iPhone is in second place with 15.8 per cent. Being the strong rival, sometimes it seems like a Brand war between them. In 2017 Samsung made a comparative advertisement showing that Apple users changed their phones after a few days because of a lack of features.
For this reason, they become jealous to see the Samsung users for their more features. And they have finally shown that they are converting the Samsung, keeping the iPhone in the drawer. Though here Samsung has compared with iPhone but only showing the opposing sides of iPhone and Samsung has turned into a superior.
Why does a brand do Negative Marketing?
Brands are negatively pained through negative marketing, and people remember them for a long time. It gives a competitive advantage. Many competitors get humiliated through negative marketing in front of customers, which Pepsi always do with Coca-Cola. In an advertisement, a boy put a coin in vending for two Coca-Cola to look Pepsi superior. And by standing on them, he is buying Pepsi. And they explained that customers prefer Pepsi rather than Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola does precisely the same thing but with a twist. Coca-Cola explains happiness then revenge. In answer to that, they showed the boy put the Pepsi back. And this simple strategy touches the customer emotionally.
Again BMW and Mercedes also maintain a humiliation culture. In terms of that, when the CEO of Mercedes retired, then BMW made a tribute video titled FREE AT LAST. It shows that when Dieter ZETSCHE retires, and the Mercedes is taken from his house, he comes out with the BMW 8 Roadstar.
They tried to imply that he could not have used the BMW even if he wanted to while he was at his job. Now he willingly could use BMW.
How to convert a negative image to a positive image through Negative Marketing?
Once Dominos got a colossal amount of negative comments or hate comments. And they made an ad with those negative comments. And they addressed that you can criticise yourself by reading those hate comments or improve yourself. And they focused on improvement. After that, they showed their improvement to the customer. Here they could cover their flows, but they didn’t. Instead, they showed their opposing sides and tried to show that they were continuously trying to improve. As a result, their negative image completely turned into a positive image.
Increase sales and customer base using Negative Marketing
In 1984, when Nike was the young brand while Addidas and Converse were the established giants, they tried to create their basketball face. But the most significant star player already was representing Addidas and Convers. Then they reached out to Michael Jordan and named their brand ‘AIR JORDAN’. At that time, the base of basketball shoes was generally white or Minimal. But Air Jordan used Red and Black colours, which were groundbreaking. Sports lovers usually dress up like their favourite basketball players. And Nike’s this groundbreaking shoes put a great bubble among the people. After some days, the NBA sends a warning letter to Nike informing them that their shoes aren’t complying with rules and regulations. But Nike ignores that warning and gives fines of 5000 dollars for black and red shoes for every match. And finally, Nike takes their legendary marketing moves through negative marketing. They made an advertisement informing that the NBA banned Nike, but you can still continue wearing Nike. Overnight, Nike created hype, and people got crazy about buying Air Jordan. The funny fact was that the NBA didn’t ban Nike. Still, Nike makes them favoured by negative marketing.
