I’ve been seeing a lot of commercials lately that take hits at the competitors of the advertisers.  It’s a bit annoying and really turns me off to these people/organizations – after all, shouldn’t the focus be on what makes you good rather than what makes them bad?  Since when did bashing the opposition become the trend du jour?  I don’t like that approach and lose a lot of respect for those who choose that way of promoting themselves.

Have you seen those commercials?  I’m thinking of the Audi one during the Olympics where they talk about how for every friendly competition, there is a second best, the ones who don’t quite get the honor and are overshadowed.  Then they say that their “friends” at BMW know exactly how that feels.  Why couldn’t they just stick with their message of superior engineering?  There’s also the Verizon ones that make fun of AT&T’s supposed sparse coverage map (the speed skater themed one where the guy with Verizon coverage gets an edge over the guy with AT&T’s coverage and the sports one where the guy with a Verizon map blocks the view of the TV, but the guy with a AT&T map doesn’t interfere with game-watching).  Then there’s the Meg Whitman vs. Steve Poizner series, of which I found the attacks against Poizner, but couldn’t track down the ones against Whitman.  There’s also the Time Warner Cable one where the guy is sitting on his porch and his satellite signal goes out.  I think that’s directed towards DirectTV.

In any case, you can see that there is no shortage of commercials on the air now that bash away at one company while promoting another.  I believe that there are better ways to do it.  I’m personally not a fan of such actions, so I think I’ll avoid Audis, Verizon, Meg or Steve, and Time Warner as much as possible.  If they’re good enough in other aspects, I may not ignore them completely, but if there aren’t that great to begin with… forget about gaining a loyal customer!  Those commercials just rubbed me the wrong way.