Now I know I am an ageing suit (and in deference to Vinz the Godfather not quite as senior as him) but I have been lurching around the marketing and advertising world for too long.

 

One of the things we learn from bitter experience is that "knocking copy" rarely, if ever, works. What is knocking copy? That's when the ads for Brand A say "don't buy Brand B because it's cr*p". And in retaliation, Brand B says "don't buy Brand A because it's cr*p". And so on.

 

What happens? The customer:

a) starts to dislike both brands - i.e. they're both cr*p so I won't listen to either

b) gets turned off listening to the messages cos they're depressing and who likes listening to people moaning all the time

c) buys less of whatever product category Brand A and Brand B are in - because all they ever hear is how cr*p this type of product is.

 

That's why we almost never use it. Just imagine how keen we would be on, say, cars in general if all we ever heard was Ford saying, don't buy Rovers because they're old, Rover saying don't buy Vauxhaull because they're unreliable, Vauxhall saying don't buy Nissan because they're driven by old people with braces and pipes, Nissan saying don't buy Fords because they're Dagenham rubbish and so on and so on.

 

Bad karma - car market vanishes, no-one cares any more.

 

What's the moral? - Buddha say if you care, work out your own moral.

 

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

 

 

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