Analysis of direct vs indirect advertising and its effects on consumer perception of the brand

Abstract

Comparative advertising is one of the marketing tactics that brands have widely used to grab the attention of the masses and persuade them to use their products over their competitors’. Some of these are direct in nature, in which brands show their competitors’ names explicitly, while some are indirect, where the brands claim superiority over all other brands in the market. These kinds of ads can sometimes create a positive effect in the minds of the customers, but at times when it is overdone, it could create repercussions. Both direct and indirect ads differ in the impact its causes in the consumers attitude towards the brand. The outcome of comparative ads depends on a variety of factors. The nature of comparative ads can be different in terms of the way in which they refer to other brands and the attributes they use to make the comparisons. Comparisons could be based on facts or by trying to appeal to the affective state of the customer. The intent behind doing a comparative ad could be many. For a new brand this could mean trying to achieve top of the mind recall by comparing itself to the leading brand. For some this could simply mean showing superiority over other brands. Some creative ads also intent to create entertainment for the customers and improve the brand recall, while also ending up recall for competitor brand. Both direct and indirect advertisements perform in different manner and vary with several other factors which affect them. The aim of this study is the understand the effectiveness of both these ads and evaluate the conditions under which each of them become successful.