Mud Slinging and...

[scorrpio]

I am indifferent. I do my own research. Well, maybe not entirely indifferent. If I happen to see an ad, and the only 'good thing' a product can show about itself is to bash a main competitor, it sure gets a raised eyebrow.

[mschrank]

I voted that it "does affect my decision" because if I see too much of it from one party/brand, I'm likely to seek another direction.

[ejs1097]

As far as company/politican bashing a competitor, i'm not too keen on the practice....That said, how many times has someone (including myself) said that about a product/politican that we are already against, then when the party we like do it, overlook the occurance? Sometimes I do it w/o realizing it, or take the one for fact and the other for truth/data stretching.

[LCHIEN]

I think a classic example is the DSL providers vs. the cable internet providers. There was a big war on TV for the shares of internet providers between SBC (Southwestern bell) and Time-Warner Comm. a few years back.

SBC would give you ADSL with around 1.5 MB/sec performance over a dedicated line to the central office where you got merged into a big pipe.

TWC would give you theoretical 6 MBit/sec performance which you would get if none of your neighbors ever used it, toherwise you would share that performance with them. up to the point where it merged into a big pipe.

TWC would bash SBC for being so slow (only 1.5 vs. 6) and SBC would bash TWC for sharing bandwidth. In each case it depended upon the total load and the number and type of downloading going on on the shared lines as to which was really faster. It might not even make a difference because once you reached the central office for SBC or the next router up for TWC, you had to share that large pipe with many more people and you may or may not get your full bandwidth in any case.

So each was telling a somewhat true story and touting the benefits of their system and the weakness of their competition but not disclosing any of the weaknesses of their system and how you'd porbably never get full performance with either.

I guess my point is never trust completely the advertising of any company, whether mud-slinging or not, they have only their own best interests in mind.

[L. D. Jeffries]

Mud Slinging/Tool Bash

IMHO this could have been two polls. Mud slinging all too often is a practice that relys on inaccurate information and as a result does as much disrespect to the slinger as the receiptent. I personally do not trust the person who is slinging mud at someone else, no matter what the subject! An old "police" adage: "Remember, the first information is usually wrong". Tool bashing on the other hand is a useful medium. There are far too many tools/gadgets that do not live up to their potential; poorly made, inferior materials, poor design and stop working after a relative short period of use. Usually they are the ones that there is no recourse but to junk them as the manufacture is either unknown or unreachable. As an example; Sears sold routers that had a "plastic" locking device on the height adjustment. Totally unusable after a couple of months of use. Just an example of use of materials totally unsuitable for their intended use, with the designers not giving any or much thought to their product; or the selling company's buyers for that matter!

[ragswl4]

I don't pay any attention to product bashing on TV cause I don't watch TV, at least not broadcast TV. There's not much on worth watching. Complaining about a product via a forum such as this does get my attention because it's from real world folks. Not that it will stop me from buying, but I will most likely do a little more research on the product. For me that's a positive.

I don't bash HF, except in jest. When I go there, I know I'm not buying the best so my expectations are less. When I go to Sears or buy from Amazon I don't expect to get the best either, just what I paid for. I am generally satisified.

Complaints and/or reviews are totally different from bashing, in my view.

[ufg8r85]

sell your product on it's own merits. If you have to bash the competition I'm not really interested in what you have to say. Turns me off

Steve

[vaking]

I suggest looking at this from perspective of marketing manager of the company. If the product you are offering is a commodity - there is plenty of competition and attacking one or even several of possible competitors is pointless. But imagine that your product fights in a space where there is not much competition, ideally there is one clear market leader (not you). For clarity - presume you are trying to market word processing program competing against Microsoft Word. You know upfront that if anyone today needs word processor - Microsoft Word will be the first that comes to buyer's mind. The most efficient marketing strategy for you probably is to put your product and Word side-by-side and demonstrate to the public that you are offering superior product or comparable product at fraction of a cost. Many people will consider that bashing, but comparing against a commonly-known benchmark is an effective marketing tool.
The same happens when politicians do bashing. When you are looking for a job - you market yourself. In most cases you do not know other candidates, so your resume emphasizes your strong points. But in elected positions your opponents are easy to find out. And the most effective strategy becomes to emphasize your strong points and your opponents weak points at the same time.
Let's make another analogy. When an athlete prepares for a difficult match he works on improving his skills but he also studies the style of opponent and develops a strategy how to exploit weaknesses in that style. He prepares himself not just to be a better athlete but conditions himself for this specific match.
Marketing strategy for commodity products and for oligopolistic situation are very different.

[eddy merckx]

I think mud slinging stays in politics because it actually works, even though it's sleazy. Since most voting or for that matter buying decisions are actually based on emotion, it works very well to color your competition with a negative emotion. Even better if that image is felt unconciously. I imagine that's what spin doctoring is all about.

I don't think that product bashing works very well though. It usually says just as much about the basher as the bashee. For instance, if you complain about a $25 HF router being crappy, what does it say about how realistic your expectations are? If everyone says that a product doesn't work well and you buy it anyway, then complain about it.....

If you pay good money for a high end product and it is bad and you bash it, most people wonder why you didn't just return it for a new one.

In retail, we found that bashing the competition often backfires. It just makes potential customers curious about what you're so scared of. I won't allow my employees to do. We often get new customers who are really turned off by the competition bashing us though.

Eddy