Comparative ads

As we discussed a little bit about that in our marketing lessons, I wanted to talk about a subject that I like, it is the comparative ads. I found it interesting to see how the rules change with the countries and how the advertising agencies try to deal with the laws. I thought it was completely forbidden to publish this kind of ads in my country until I saw this kind of ads:

So I made some research and I found that to be authorized a campaign must follow some rules. It must compare good or services that has the same goal. And the comparaison must be true, no lies.

It was first accepted in France in 1986, and then it was authorized in 1992 by a law.

But we can see that it is mostly the big supermarket chains that make comparative ads.

In other countries the laws are differents, for instance in the USA there are no real law against the comparative ads so we can find this kind of ads :

This is aggressive and it is completly forbidden to libel his competitor. (here the MSG is a aditive that is not good for the health)

Cécile P