A Project Report

on
“WHY DO COMPANIES AND
ADVERTISING AGENCIES OPT FOR
FREE- STYLE COMBAT.”

Submitted By:

ANURAG VIKASH
INTRODUCTION

The key focus of the literature on dynamic effects of advertising is to understand how
advertising affects market share by bringing over competitors’ consumers. The more a firm
spends on advertising, the more sales it stands to gain; but if both competing firms spend on
advertising, then the efforts are negated. There is no proposed change to the preference structure
of consumers, and firms do not make their pricing decisions, they classify persuasive advertising
as non-price advertising.
Comparative advertising has been gaining in usage and aggressiveness among advertisers in
India. Instances of product categories where this strategy has been used include those of
detergents in 1971, butter in 1971, photocopiers during 1985-86, mosquito repellents in1985 and
two-wheelers in 1989. Specific examples of comparative advertising campaigns can be cited
from Indian advertising. Hero Honda versus TVS Suzuki and HCL versus Modi Xerox are
examples of direct comparative advertising. The Nirma versus Surf campaigns for detergent
powder and soap bars are examples of indirect comparative advertising. It is more than evident
that the strategy is gaining momentum. Given this trend in the field of advertising, a decision
that advertisers need to confront is whether comparative advertising is indeed more effective
than non-comparative advertising. And, as a corollary to the above decision, they also need to
determine whether to compare a product with a competitor's product directly and also whether to
refer to the competitor by name. On the positive side is the fact that comparative advertising is
commended for its novelty as well as its associated ability to capture the selective attention of
viewers due to the mention of competing brand names. Comparative advertising has been lauded
for being more aggressive and factual in its approach. It has also been suggested, in fact, that
this approach would appeal particularly to industrial goods buyers who are better informed
concerning product characteristics than consumer goods buyers.
Several studies have indicated that the impact of a comparative message is governed either
positively or negatively by a variety of intervening factors such as:
• Advertising theme
• Market position of an advertised brand
• Claim substantiation
• Prior loyalty to brands involved in comparative messages.
NEED AND IMPORTANCE:
Comparative advertising has been advocated as being more effective on several points. Thus, it
may generate:
 Increased Attention And Recall
 Increased Comprehension Of Claims And/ Or
 Greater Tendency to Yield to Claims.
Despite these positive aspects, most studies have not been supportive to comparative
advertising. In particular, the issue of claim believability has been subject to doubt. It is also
considered that comparative advertising might cause an information overload on recipients and
lead to an effective blocking of advertisements. Since information overload tends to take place
on excessive amounts of attribute information, it would follow that too much information may
reduce subjects' attention and become dysfunctional. Information overload has therefore been
another issue of importance in comparative advertising. It has, in fact, been found that
comparative advertising results in significantly more counter arguments and source derogations.
Because of this, negative attitudes to an advertised brand may result

LIMITATION:

1. As the time for the research was limited, the time constraint was one of the limitations
for this descriptive research.

2. Limited case studies could be analysed.

3. Not sufficient data regarding certain case studies are found.

OBJECTIVE:

1. Analyze the comparative advertising strategies adopted by Companies over the years.

2. Understand the issues and challenges faced by companies while using comparative
advertising.

3. Examine the efficacy of comparative advertising in enhancing brand image and sales.

4. Study the implications of the advertising war between companies in same league.

5. Discuss and debate the legal/ethical issues involved in the case.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:
Research will be more of descriptive type. Purpose of the research is to bring out facts about the
effectiveness of combative advertisement.

The significance of this project will be to study the effectiveness of combative strategy in
advertisement. This research will be useful for all the companies for making decisions regarding
either implementing the combative strategy or further development of the present strategy based
on the research. This will give idea about how efficient is the combative advertising as a
marketing strategy.

DATA DESCRIPTION:
• TYPE OF RESEARCH:
It’s a descriptive research where all the data taken are from secondary sources.
Descriptive Research is a fact finding investigation which is aimed at describing the
characteristics of individual, situation or a group (or) describing the state of affairs as it
exists at present.We will study certain cases to investigate how combative advertising by
competing brands influences consumer preferences and company profitability.
TYPES OF DATA:
Secondary data. Case studies have been taken for the analysis of the paper. The
following are the cases considered for study:

1. TVS SUZUKI VS HERO HONDA

2. TIDE VS RIN
3. MODI XEROX VS HCL PHOTOCPIER
4. COMPLAN VS HORLICKS
5. PEPSI VS COCA-COLA.

• DATA COLLECTION:

The source of data collection was through secondary data like,

 Internet (journals, blogs)
 Books and
 Newspapers.
DATA ANALYSIS:

1) TVS SUZUKI VS HERO HONDA:

CASE STUDY:

TVS Suzuki, which is controlled by a conservative Madras-based industrial house, decided to

pull out all the stops in the battle to draw even with motorbike industry Hero Honda. Suzuki
went the extent of putting a photo of the Hero Honda bike in the corner of its advertisement and
then pointedly inquired whether the bike was all it was cracked up to be.
This was followed by a chart enumerating the weaknesses of the Hero Honda against another
chart which listed the perceived strengths of the Suzuki motorbike. At more or less the same
time, Suzuki released released a second advertisement aimed more specifically to Bihar market
where the Escorts Rajdoot 175 is the king of the road, here, Suzuki concentrated its attack on the
older technology of the Rajdoot.
Last year, Lohia Machines ploughed in large quantities of money to trumpet the fact that it had
scored heavily over the competitors including Bajaj and Kinetic Honda during extensive
roadworthiness tests.
Whether it works or not, one thing is certain: comparative advertising creates a good deal of
bad blood and leaves a trail of frayed tempers all around. Rivals invariably insist that
competitive advertising which run down their products are misleading and plot ways to strike
back .Hero Honda has come under strong pressure from its dealers to fire a broadside to counter
the Suzuki offensive. After a lot of agonising it has chose a multipronged riposte. At one level it
has protested to the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices. Commission, arguing that the;
Suzuki advertisement amounts to a restrictive trade practice. At another level, it has also written
to the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) complaining that the Suzuki
advertisement contravenes the norms laid down by the council. In the letter, Jai Narain of Hero
Honda argues "I would look forward to its evaluation by you in terms of its (the Suzuki
advertisement) continuing false information; if it is misleading in any way and whether it can be
termed as offensive advertising." And if indeed it is in good taste." Hero Honda has not received
a reply to its letter yet. By a strange quirk of fate, the Chairman of the ASCI, R.K. Swamy, is
also the ahead of R.K. Swamy Associates which released the Suzuki' advertisements. But
Swamy has done his own spot of letter writing. He has complained to Hero Honda that they
have stolen the Suzuki punchline — more mobike for your money — in their latest
advertisement 'campaign.
.
But there are other concrete reasons why companies shy away from replying in kind.
Comparative advertisements are universally admitted to be a double-edged sword which
perforce gives rival companies as much prominence as the advertiser himself.
In the final analysis, however, nobody is quite certain what impact comparative advertising has
in the marketplace. Suzuki is thought to have spent about Rs 30 lakh on its campaign though it
is too early to say whether it has borne fruit yet. But there is one thing that everyone realises: it
is one thing to be talked about and it is another thing altogether to translate that into actual sales.
CASE ANALYSIS:

1. For the most part, however, firms which come under attack do not usually reply in kind
for several simple reasons. Invariably, comparative advertisements are aimed at market
leaders who can afford to let their rivals slip in a punch or two. Hero Honda is estimated
to have almost 41 per cent of the 100 Cc"Motorcycle market."

2. But Hero Honda's advertising campaign itself has been relatively restrained. It has stuck
to pointing out that it has already sold 2.5 lakh bikes and that it has another four lakh
people on its waiting lists.

Two-wheelers: Player-wise Market Share

COMPANY 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03
2003-04 2004-05
Hero Honda 22.0 28.8 33.1 33.2
36.8 39.9

TVS Motor 22.5 24.2 20.1 22.1

20.4 17.8
2) RIN VS TIDE:

CASE STUDY:

In the Rin ad, 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. Call it the classic case of combative advertising.
After Cadbury India and Nestlé, detergent majors Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) and Procter
& Gamble India are now engaged in a bitter advertising war. With the launch of its new ad
campaign for Rin, HUL has directly taken on P&G's detergent brand Tide Naturals in its
communications. With the tagline Tide se kahin behatar safedi de Rin, HUL's ad directly
compares the washing power of Rin with that of Tide, stating that this claim is based on
laboratory tests done through globally accepted protocols in independent third-party
laboratories’. As a result, battle lines are being redrawn in the Rs 4,500-crore branded detergent
sector in India. Combative advertising, also known as guerrilla marketing, is back in India after
a gap of few months
Without solid factual backup, comparative ads only serve to create a ruckus and bring the
advertising and the brand(s) into the public eye. 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.. 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.

The long history of the two competitors P&G and HUL suggests that HUL has been under
pressure because of its aggressive competitors bringing down the market share of its brands at
all price points. This pressure on HUL aggravated since the launch of P&G’s Tide Naturals
which was positioned against its Surf Excel and was inadvertently eating into its market share.
This desperation is manifested in the latest Ad of Rin. Interestingly, this Ad has positioned Rin
as the competitor to Tide. The new launch of P&G (Tide Naturals) was also supported by
aggressive marketing campaign. We are not questioning HUL being wrong in pointing out
openly at Tide, but the point I am raising here is that will this Ad take Advertisement to a
different level?
CASE ANALYSIS:

1. The advertisement is illegal for two reasons:

(i) Ad voice over says “Rin is better than Tide” while the visual shows “Tide Naturals” a cheaper
variant of Tide. Hence if the tests which HUL claims are true against “Tide Naturals” then pointing
out “Tide” is blatant lie and HUL should be sued for millions of dollars for defaming a brand againt
which it doesn’t hold superiority.
(ii) While it’s been an industry practice to say my brand give amazing benefit vs. “ordinary brand”
and exxagerate the benefit for dramatic effect. But if this ordinary brand is given a “name” (like
“Tide” in this case) one cannot exaggerate benefit. So even if Rin is able to claim “better whiteness”
than the cheaper version of tide, “Tide Naturals” the difference in shirts show it’s an exaggerated
difference as what’s shown can never be reality even if the other shirt is washed with plain water!
This is again disparagement of a competitor’s brand.
 2. The back ground to HUL’s desperation is the culmination of two things:
a) Rin is at its lowest share in 7 years at 4.6% (down from 7.2% in 2003) . On the other
hand Tide at 8.8% has become almost double the size of Rin powders despite being a very
new player (up from 2.4% in Jan 2003)
b) The pressure from global Unilever on the Indian arm to deliver results at any cost has led
to such unethical aggression. But for sure approval for such ads cannot have been given by
anyone below the rank of Units India head.

3. Rin, for sure must have gained some market share via this Ad with consumers

i) Who are not brand loyal and

ii) Who are willing to try different things?

Nevertheless, there is a blurred disclaimer that appears in the bottom twice

during the TVC that says… “Schematic representation of superior
whiteness is based on Whiteness Index test of Rin Vs Tide Naturals as
tested by Independent lab“. Well, the legal disparagements are yet to
consider and as in today’s news, the court has asked HUL to pull out this Ad.
But the damage is already done. Instead of this short term gain, HUL could
have made use of its distribution reach, which is far more superior than P&G
and done some serious promotional campaigns to outsmart P&G or even
more could have roped in some celebrity to endorse its brand “rather than
entering into this cheap gimmick.

4. It's a well known fact that HUL and P&G have been trying to gain market share through
price cuts although this has reduced their revenues for FY09-10. Recently in the month
of January2010 P&G introduced an extension on its brand line "TIDE" with the name of
"TIDE NATURALS". This at a lower price. And around the end of January itself, HUL
has brought down the prices of their detergents RIN, Surf Excel by 10-30%.
.
3) MODI XEROX VS HCL PHOTOCOPIER:

CASE STUDY:

Trikaya Grey in 1996 took charge of the account of HCL, and when a pioneering comparative
advertising campaign took place.

Companies faced by ever increasing competition are also opting for bare-knuckle tactics with
increasing frequency. HCL was one such company which began a determined effort to make a
comeback in the copier market in December 1988, with a new range of products. HCL's main
selling point was that it was selling copiers at much cheaper prices than market leader Modi
Xerox, but as savage competition builds up in a host of industries, most companies are
determined to exploit every little point that may be in their favour.

Modi Xerox has also taken much the same tack, stressing the fact that more than 50 per cent of
its clients are repeat customers who are satisfied with service.
Says Gupta: "Let Modi Xerox reply to the advertisements. I am sure they won't dare to as the
facts are absolutely right. "Ajit Shah of Everest however lauds the Modi Xerox approach saying:
"Modi Xerox responded indirectly, saying doesn’t look only at the price."
The leading advertising industry J-'pundits back Shah's point emphasising that as a rule,
companies don't usually retaliate directly no matter how peeved they may be about an
advertisement.

CASE ANALYSIS:

1. This pioneering comparative advertising campaign helped drive HCL’s share of the
Indian photocopier market from 4% to 37% in one quarter.

2. Modi Xerox claims that sales have gone up in the wake of the HCL campaign and the
controversy it kicked up. HCL also claims to have benefited from the campaign and
picked up more than 2,000 fresh orders in the last two months. Besides this, advertising
pundits also cite other weighty reasons why bigger companies, which are the target of
comparative advertisements, do not usually strike back in kind.
4) COMPLAN VS HORLICKS:

CASE STUDY:

Horlicks:
Horlicks was invented by William Horlick (William) and his brother James Horlick (James)
(1844-1921) in 1873. The brothers belonged to Gloucestershire, England. James was a chemist
and worked for a company which made dried baby food.

Complan:
Complan, owned by the Heinz Company, was one of the most popular health drinks in India.
The name Complan was coined from the words "COMplete" and "PLANed". Complan was
introduced by Glaxo Laboratories (Glaxo) in the UK during World War II (1939-1945), as an
essential nutritional supplement for soldiers at the frontlines.

This case is about the advertising war between two popular health drink brands Horlicks and
Complan in India. The war for supremacy between these two brands started as early as in 1960s
and had continued ever since. Over the years, the brands were involved in aggressive
comparative advertising in print and television over attributes such as ingredients, protein
content, growth, and flavors. However, in late 2008, the makers of Horlicks, GlaxoSmithKline
Consumer Healthcare (GSK), and the makers of Complan, Heinz India (Heinz), came out with
advertisements that directly compared the brands using the competitor brand's trademarks.
Industry observers felt that in their bid to outdo each other, the two companies had ended up
denigrating the competitor brand.

Usually issues related to disparaging ads by rival companies were resolved by the Advertising
Standards Council of India (ASCI). But with constant mudslinging at each other, the two
companies decided to solve the issue in courts. In September 2008, Heinz moved the Bombay
High Court objecting to the Horlicks Ad, while in December 2008, GSK approached the Delhi
High Court against the Complan ad.
 Experts felt that the latest tiff between GSK and Heinz had brought to the fore the issues and
challenges involved in comparative advertising and the legal/ethical issues involved in such kind
of advertising. In late 2008, a legal battle broke out between GlaxoSmithKline Consumer
Healthcare (GSK) and Heinz India (Heinz) over the advertisements of their respective health
drinks Horlicks and Complan.

The advertisements talked about how their respective brand was better than the other and
showed the competitor's product in bad light when compared to the company's products. In
September 2008, Heinz moved the Bombay High Court objecting to advertisements of Horlicks
which highlighted the nutritional content and price gap between the two brands, and showed
Horlicks as a better and more inexpensive health drink than Complan.

The advertisement showed the competitor brandclearly while making the comparison. Heinz later
followed up with its own ad comparing Horlicks unfavorably with Complan. This prompted GSK to
file a case in the Delhi High Court in December 2008 claiming that the ad released by Heinz
disparaged its brand by calling it low priced, and thereby damaging its reputation.

CASE ANALYSIS:

1. Horlicks and Complan were popular health drinks in Indian households. The estimated Rs.18
billion health drinks market in India was growing at an annual rate of 20% as per AC Nielsen
data. As of 2008, GSK was the market leader in the health drink category in India with a
share of 55%, while Complan's market share was about 14%.
2. The ongoing war for supremacy between these two brands in the Indian health drink market started as
early as in the 1960s. According to analysts, the latest round in the health drink war was initiated by
the makers of Horlicks; the makers of Complan retaliated.
5) PEPSI VS COCA COLA:

CASE STUDY:

Per capita consumption of carbonated soft drinks has rose from 1970 to 1999 but in year 2000
there has been a slight drop in per capita consumption. However if we see the similar data for
other drinks, there has either been a slight rise or fall in per capita consumption in the year 2000.
So the per capita consumption data reveals that other drinks are not necessarily eating up the
market share of carbonated soft drinks. Coke and Pepsi in the Twenty-First Century” is about
the “love-hate” relationship between the two largest cola companies of America, as they fight
with each other for shares of a $60 billion industry, while also fighting with the industry to
increase and fuel growth for cola consumption. From 1975 to 1990 both companies achieved an
average annual growth of about 10%, while consumption grew in the U.S. and worldwide, but a
turn of events in the late 1990s threatened the companies with consumption of carbonated soft
drinks (CSD) dropping for a consecutive two years and worldwide shipments were also slowing.
The decline is thought to be from the consumer’s want for alternatives to CSD’s like sports
drinks, bottled water, juices, teas, etc. The solution to this problem relies on both of the
companies’ abilities to boost flagging domestic sales, venture into emerging international
markets, broaden their brand portfolio for new streams of revenue and include non-carbonated
beverages in their “big plan”.

The cola wars had become a part of global folklore - something all of us took for granted.
However, for the companies involved, it was a matter of 'fight or succumb. ‘Both print and
electronic media served as battlefields, with the most bitter of the cola wars often seen in form
of the comparative advertisements.

In the early 1970s, the US soft-drinks market was on the verge of maturity, and as the major
players, Coke and Pepsi offered products that 'looked the same and tasted the same,'substantial
market share growth seemed unlikely. However, Coke and Pepsi kept rejuvenating the market
through product modifications and pricing/promotion/distribution tactics. As the competition
was intense, the companies had to frequently implement strategic changes in order to gain
competitive advantage. The only way to do this, apart from introducing cosmetic product
innovations, was to fight it out in the marketplace. This modus operandi was followed in the
Indian markets as well with Coke and Pepsi resorting to more innovative tactics to generate
consumer interest. In essence, the companies were trying to increase the whole market pie, as
the market-shares war seemed to get nowhere. This was because both the companies came out
with contradictory market share figures as per surveys conducted by their respective agencies -
ORG (Coke) and IMRB (Pepsi). For instance, in August 2000, Pepsi claimed to have increased
its market share for the first five months of calendar year 2000 to 49% from 47.3%, while Coke
claimed to have increased its share in the market to 57%, in the same period, from 55%.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi are the two greatest competitors in the soft drink industry.TV commercials
are a really important part of a brand's identity, along with the logo and slogans used over time.
Just as the other parts of the identity, it tells us a lot about the company's positioning. Also, we
get to see how they find themselves within the market .We manage to find 2 basic
characteristics in these commercials: the use/or not of celebrities and the use/or not of emotional
appeal. Mostly, all Pepsi commercials tend to use celebrities, and have no emotional appeal.
They're just selling their product, and don't bother to attach any kind of feeling to that. On the
other hand, Coca-Cola keeps the same strategy from the beginning: we are a traditional brand,
people know us and know the quality of our product. Also, for being such a solid brand, they
keep positioning themselves as an emotional brand. It sells tradition, warm feelings,
brotherhood and happiness. So, as you can see, these 2 brands have their own, singular
positioning. And it's very clear why most people tend to choose Coke over Pepsi. Coke sells all
the things that bring people together. Pepsi sells futility
CASE ANALYSIS:

1. From 1966 to 1975 coca cola is ahead of Pepsi by about 13-14% in market share but
between 1975 and 1985 this gap has declined to as low as 8% mainly because of the
effect of the Pepsi challenge. However coca cola has gained the lead and the difference
is ticking around 14% again. Maybe Pepsi needs another blockbuster to narrow the gap
or take the lead.

2. Financial statements show that Pepsi has been a better and consistent performer as compared to
coca cola. Net profit per sales of Pepsi was far behind coca cola in the year 1975 but by the year
2000 the gap had been eliminated and both is having almost the same level of net profit per sales
(Pepsi leading by 0.1%). Similarly net profit per equity of coca cola rose from 21.0% in 1975 to
56.7% in 1996 and declined to 23.4% in 2000. For Pepsi the similar figures have changed only
for good during the same phase and had a net profit per equity ratio of 30.1% in the year 2000

3. In August 2000, Pepsi claimed to have increased its market share for the first five
months of calendar year 2000 to 49% from 47.3%, while Coke claimed to have increased
its share in the market to 57%, in the same period, from 55%.This all are the effect of th
combative marketing between the two companies.

4. The global advertisement wars between the cola giants quickly spread to India as well.
Internationally, Pepsi had always been seen as the more aggressive and offensive of the
two, and its advertisements the world over were believed to be more popular than
Coke's.

FINDINGS:
Some of the findings of the research are:

1. Comparative advertising, when tastefully executed, can be an example of successful

advertising. Brands are built on competitive spirit, but there has to be a long term
strategy in building brands and the proposition should be unique enough to make it
convincing. Else it's akin to salesmen fighting among each other proving their brand to
be better, which ends up actually mocking the product.

2. The law allows you to say that your goods are better, but stops you from saying that your
competitor's goods are inferior. But the moment you say that you are better, by
implication you are saying that others are inferior. So, it is a question of saying whether
the glass is half full or half empty.

3. Comparative advertising has been lauded for being more aggressive and factual in its
approach. It has also been suggested, in fact, that this approach would appeal particularly to
industrial goods buyers who are better informed concerning product characteristics than
consumer goods buyers.

4. Comparative advertisement no doubt gives a thrust may be positive or negative direction.

But there is one thing that everyone realises: it is one thing to be talked about and it is
another thing altogether to translate that into actual sales.

IMPLICATION OF THE STUDY:

1. Given this trend in the field of advertising, a decision that advertisers need to confront is
whether comparative advertising is indeed more effective than non-comparative
advertising.
2. And, as a corollary to the above decision, they also need to determine whether to
compare a product with a competitor's product directly and also whether to refer to the
competitor by name.
SUGGESTION:
 1. These results indicate that the comparative ads were all evaluated less positively than the
non-comparative ad copy. Some studies also indicate that comparative advertisements
tend to be evaluated less positively than non-comparative ad messages for a whole range
of consumer products such as soap, beer, automobiles, cat food, credit cards, deodorants,
mouthwash and toothpaste
2. Such a finding would imply that non-comparative advertising may be more effective
than comparative advertising at least for certain product categories.
3. Comparative advertisement has different effects according to the different cultures of the
country and also to the legal an ethical issues related to that country. This can be one of
the topics for further research in the field of advertisement.

CONCLUSION:

Similarly, Fusion a company which makes plastic water tanks, recently decided that it needed a
few dramatic moves to break the stranglehold of Sintex, the leading company in the field.
Fusion decided finally on a blunt no-holds barred campaign which pitted it directly against
Sintex. And earlier last year, The Times of India (which is a sister publication of The Economic
Times) decided to cross swords with two other leading publications, The Hindustan Times and
India Today. Says Ravi Gupta of Trikaya Grey which has master minded many of the boldest
comparative campaigns: "What is the wrong with a comparison with all the facts right?
.

Similar battles were fought between cola majors PepsiCo and Coca-Cola India in the past few
years. Last year, chocolate majors Cadbury India and Nestlé also locked horns over the much-
hyped 'Pehli Tarikh ad'. Nestlé's spoof on Cadbury's 'Pehli Tarikh Ad' created bad blood
between the two archrivals. It is not just the highly competitive categories such as colas,
detergents and automobiles that are resorting to combative advertising to settle scores.
Advertisers across categories are now opting for this mode of advertising to grab the attention of
consumers.

Why do companies opt for this mode of advertising? Primarily, companies opt for combative
advertising technique to grab eyeballs and negative attention. Clearly, HUL has succeeded in
catching the attention of millions of viewers in the last few days. In mature markets with
competing firms, a common role for advertising is to shift consumer preferences towards the
advertiser in a tug-of-war, with no effect on category demand. Traditionally used as a combative
tool by advertisers to draw negative attention to competitors, spoof advertising has moved well
past this in India.

As a result, advertisers across categories are now spoofing media content to cut through the
clutter and infuse combative advertising into their campaigns. This helps the brand ensure high
recall, as the spoof is usually on popular content that is easily identifiable.

REFERENCE:

WEBSITES:

www.icmr.org

www.ayushveda.com

www.wikepedia.org

NEWSPAPER:

The Hindu Business Line (4th March, 2010)