Boiler manufactures uses comparative advertising to raise sales

A capital equipment maker in Tamil Nadu has adopted the comparative advertisement marketing strategy to lure power companies to buy its super critical boilers which operate at high temperatures and pressures.The comparative advertisement strategy (comparing features and prices of goods) is commonly used by consumer durables and fast moving consumer goods companies.The Tiruchirappalli (Trichy)-based Cethar Vessels has issued full page advertisements in leading newspapers here, drawing the attention of power sector players.Design wise our super critical boilers are at par with any other competing boilers in the market. However, we are being sidelined for not having a joint venture with a foreign player. And hence the advertisement.In its advertisement, Cethar Vessels has claimed that the price of its super critical boilers ranges between Rs.1.25 crore and Rs.1.30 crore whereas others are selling at a premium price of Rs.1.75-1.80 crore.If one goes by Cethar Vessels claim, a 660 MW power project promoter can save Rs.330 crore using super critical boilers made by the company.'Foreign boiler makers load the product prices by around Rs.35 lakh towards brand premium. This advertisement will bring down that brand premium,' Subburaj said.However, industry officials told IANS that Cethar Vessels has actually understated the competitor prices as the going rate is around Rs.2 crore per MW.

Is the law adequate to prevent unfaircomparative advertising practices

Maruti Udyog Ltd recently served a legal notice on arch rival Hyundai Motor India Ltd alleging that the latter had printed incorrect information about its latest car Swift in an advertising brochure. With the liberalisation and globalisation of the Indian economy, firms have been aggressively and vigorously promoting their products and services.In a competitive environment, every representation of a product or service is about what ‘others are not’. These practices raise questions about truthfulness and fairness of representation of products and services.The paper extracted from Vikalpa - the journal of IIM, Ahmedabad - explores regulations on comparative advertising in the context of globalisation and liberalisation in India.

Is the law adequate to prevent unfaircomparative advertising practices? In the Indian context, should the balance in interpreting the law not be tilted against such an ad? The opening up of the economy, on its own, is not going to create and sustain competition. An appropriate law, adequate enforcement, strong infrastructure, and a quick dispute settlement mechanism would be needed to sustain competition. Retreat of the State, in the context of free economy, is not to be misunderstood as the State not regulating the economy. The State would need to develop adequate knowledge of the working of businesses in a free economy, enact laws, and create infrastructure and mechanisms for sustaining competition. In its absence, we would only be regressing from a ‘license permit raaj’ to the ‘jungle rule of the market’. The processes of liberalisation and globalisation are nascent. It is not too late to begin.

comparative Advertising complan vs Horlicks

Horlicks was invented by William Horlick (William) and his brother James Horlick (James) (1844-1921) in 1873.Complan, owned by the Heinz Company, was one of the most popular health drinks in India.
until the 1990s, Horlicks was the more aggressive player in the health drink market compared to Complan. While Horlicks introduced a series of variants aimed at the family segment and promoted its products well, Complan lay low on the promotional front, with its ads just focusing on the "extra growth" attribute.
Experts felt that in their quest to outdo their rivals, advertisers resort to comparative advertising and at times ends up denigrating the competitor brand. Some analysts felt that companies resorted to comparative advertising to gain publicity and to increase sale.Though both the companies backed their claims with scientific research data, they were still locked in a legal battle. Issues of disparaging ads by rival companies were often resolved by the ASCI. But with constant mudslinging at each other, the two companies decided to battle it out in the courts instead

RIN VS TIDE comparative advertising

The latest offensive comparative advertising from Rin – a TV commercial claiming to be better than Tide by not just naming but showing the competitive product, has brought the debate on comparative advertising back in focus. In my view, comparative advertising is permissible if it’s based on facts.

In Rin, comparative advertising the claim is limited to a whiter wash- ‘Tide se kahin behatar safedi de Rin’ (Rin gives better whiteness than Tide), without getting into specific, feature-to-feature comparison. Almost all detergent ads promise a whiter wash – except that they used to refer to ‘ordinary detergents’ leaving the consumer to figure that they are talking about her brand. The only difference here is that a competitor has been named, and shown brazenly. According to this article: ‘this claim is based on laboratory tests done through globally accepted protocols in independent third-party laboratories’.

Comparative ads aren’t new to India. Many years ago, Trikaya Grey created an ad for HCL Photocopiers which directly named Modi Xerox in their ads. The comparison was feature-to-feature and specifically mentioned why HCL was better. I don’t have the ads, but you can read about it in this 1989 article from Economic Times (link to pdf file).There have been others too – the recent Horlicks vs. Complan ads come to mind.

Without solid factual backup, comparative ads only serve to create a ruckus and bring the advertising and the brand(s) into the public eye. It remains to be seen how Tide will react but reports indicate that they may not respond directly. The ads remain on air with a high frequency for a short period of time, creating a lot of buzz before ASCI or a consumer complaint forces the advertiser to pull the ad off the air. Sometimes it may backfire on the advertiser – like in the case of Fusion water tanks. They released an ad (around the same time as the HCL ads) which said: ‘Bad news for Sintex’. It was based on a claim that Fusion had 6 new features over Sintex – the generic name for water tanks. I am not sure if it benefited Fusion; the HCL ads on the other hands helped increase shares dramatically. It’s a double edged sword since it reminds the consumer about your competing brand – just as the Surf Lalitaji ads reminded consumers of Nirma. It may also repulse a few consumers who don’t like brand bashing preferring for you to speak about your positives rather than the negatives of the competition.

Comparative ads back to the fore in FMCG category

Comparative advertising is on the rise in the FMCG category with the latest Rin versus Tide commercial based on comparing ‘whiteness', being aired extensively across prime time on television since last weekend.

According to Mr Gopal Vittal, Executive Director, Home & Personal Care, HUL, “There has been a pressure on shares but the maximum shares have been hit in the detergent category where consumers have been downtrading. But now we are seeing a gradual recovery in shares.”

In spite of HUL's volume shares growing sequentially by one per cent in the laundry segment during the December quarter, overall it faced a 2.4 per cent decline in share in the soaps and detergents during the same quarter. Today its value share in the Rs 12,000-crore detergent category stands at 34.6 per cent with brands such as Surf Excel Blue, Surf Excel, Rin and Wheel.



According to The Nielsen Company, in January, the value shares of Tide (8.8 per cent) was almost double that of Rin (4.8 per cent). While last year in January of 2009 the gap between the two brands was less when Tide enjoyed an 8 per cent value share and Rin was behind at 5.1 per cent value share.

To combat the fall in shares, HUL in January did drop prices of Rin Powder (1kg) from Rs 70 to Rs 50. In its latest ad, the price cut is being prominently displayed (Rs 25 for 500 gm) for the Rin Pack while Tide Naturals is pegged at Rs 20 for 500 gm. Considering both the FMCG companies are on the board of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), it is P&G that has been more responsible in its advertising compared to HUL, claim industry observers. According to an ASCI official, the last time the two companies got into a spat of this kind was in 2004 when the comparative advertising was based on the whiteness proposition where the competitor's brand was blurred.

Comparative advertising-Advantages and Disadvantages

Advertising has become a battlefield for creating unique, cutting-edge, and enticing ways to communicate information to customers to facilitate and positively influence their buying decisions. Important tools include slogans, trade marks, signs and symbols. When advertising is taken to a competitive level, companies tend to promote their products and services by comparing them with those of their competitors to gain consumers' attention and enhance their sales. Comparative advertising takes place either directly, by using the competitor's trade marked products, or indirectly, by making a reference to the competitor's products by insinuation or implication.

Comparative advertising has both advantages and disadvantages for the companies/institutions that use it. Here are the advantages of the comparative advertising: the message and the brand are better kept in mind, detailed and explicit information reduces confusion, improves the product’s perception, gives trustworthy, the buying intentions increase, it promotes competition etc. This kind of advertising is oriented towards the consumer because it advertises not only a product but it also insures the consumers to be well informed.The disadvantages of negative advertising include: decrease of the compared brands` fame (mainly through price comparisons), high promotion costs (the companies whose productsare put in a bad light are forced to reply by developing new advertising campaigns insuring a good positioning of products and reducing the
negative advertising’s effects and which are a lot more expensive), increase of law suits number between different companies due to this type of advertising etc.

Rin Vs Tide

There is a new fight in the biggest soap opera. In a new television advertisement, Hindustan Unilever's Rin detergent has been taking direct shots at Procter & Gamble's Tide Naturals. The latest offensive from Rin, a TV commercial claiming to be better than Tide by not just naming but showing the competitive product, has brought the debate on comparative advertising back in focus. In my view, comparative advertising is permissible if it’s based on facts.

Tide Naturals is a cheaper variant of P&G's Tide, with Rs 10 and Rs 20 packages. In the Rin commercial, the Tide Natural pack is quite prominently displayed, without the fig-leaf of masking that Indian advertisers traditionally resort to while taking potshots at competition. The voiceover "Tide se kahin behtar safedi de Rin (Rin washes much whiter than Tide)" leaves nothing to imagination. It's war, open and direct. Barring rare exceptions, fast moving consumer goods brands have stayed away from direct hits at competing brands.

Comparative ads aren’t new to India. Many years ago, Trikaya Grey created an ad for HCL Photocopiers which directly named Modi Xerox in their ads. The comparison was feature-to-feature and specifically mentioned why HCL was better. There have been others too, the recent Horlicks vs. Complan ads come to mind.