Negative Advertising Definition

Negative Advertising aims to highlight the worst sides of business or political opponents (the most widely used situation). This type of advertising is less popular since it has to include various unpleasing messages that may appear horrible so in a corporate world you won’t often see this type of promotion.

People concentrate on business failures being a true nightmare for a company that is being promoted in such way. Thereby you promote your products or services showing that your competitors are doing it wrong.

You can’t clearly predict what reaction you will receive from your target audience — not many people are fans of such a dirty game so we can’t predict the success of your campaigns. Within such campaign you highlight what your competitors are doing badly with all the risks represented, demonstrating their undesirable results.

Business goals behind negative advertising

The controversial nature of this approach sets the purpose and reasons to apply it. First of all, businesses can highlight competitors’ weaknesses. It can be related to the product, service, position, or else.

Another point stands for differentiating the brand in a way where products appear similar, negative advertisement strives to draw fine distinctions. It says more, “Why don’t you need to choose them?” instead of reasons to choose this particular company.

It can also impact the public attention shifting, sometimes — accelerating decision-making process, and more.