How your competitors could present a new marketing opportunity for you (Audi vs. BMW)

37signals.com

32 points·mburnett··8 comments

This isn't http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/

And thank goodness for that :-)

But to be serious for a minute, I felt like this was a great example of a company understanding its brand so well that it could justify risk and creativity to serve real needs.

Everything from voice to design to (probably) speed of execution is perfect.

Another example of aggressive advertising:

Sega wanted to be the underground, edgier, older brother of Nintendo (mid-late 1980s); so they launched the Sega scream and "Sega does what Ninten-don't."

(Nintendo did retaliate with "Nintendo is what Sega Genes-isn't.")

As a side note, the whole "Mention your competitors" is far less done in the UK. Either it's against rules, or it's a matter of etiquette, not sure which.

I was quite surprised when I first saw some US TV adverts picking apart the competition.

I grew up watching Canadian TV. This was like 10 years ago or more, but back then, Canadian ads would make veiled references to the competition without naming them or showing them.

I was surprised when my parents finally got a satellite dish and I saw American ads naming their competitors.

In Germany it is not done much either. As far as I know it was forbidden until a few years ago, and companies just have not started to do comparatice adverts. Perhaps they can still get sued saying the wrong things.

This was better http://halbot.haluze.sk/?id=3708 (circa 2006) But agreed with axod, this shouldn't be on HN

A4 cannot be directly compared to an M3. Not in terms of price, nor performance. Not even the same ballpark.

"What do you do if you’re Audi?"

You bring out the R8.

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