Complimenting a competitor makes brands seem warm and trustworthy, particularly with skeptical consumers
The most skeptical consumers in the experiments were likely to have the biggest positive response to brands that tipped their hats to a competitor, the researchers found.
Image: Shutterstock
Whether they’re beefing on billboards or sparring on social media, big brands are known for taking jabs at their competitors (see the famous “Get a Mac” ads or “the chicken sandwich wars”).
What consumer brands typically do not do is compliment those rivals – they wouldn’t want to grant an adversary free publicity, said Keisha Cutright, a marketing professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. But new research from Cutright published in the Journal of Marketing suggests a little goodwill can pay off.
[This article has been reproduced with permission from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. This piece originally appeared on Duke Fuqua Insights]