Negative Advertising Can Backfire on Its Sponsors

Negative ads have shown over the years that they can be very effective, especially in political campaigns. However, June Kronholz of the Wall Street Journal reported in mid October that Senator John McCain’s attack ads were costing him heavily in the polls, probably because he was hitting at Senator Barrack Obama’s past associations while voters were most concerned about the economy.

Campaign observers say that in politics negative advertising has to play to a current issue. "You can't create a concern that doesn't already exist," according to Darrell West of the Brookings Institution.

In the marketplace, however, companies have thrived by creating new health and beauty concerns and then producing medicines and cosmetics to address them.

The recent ad war between Campbell and Progresso, in which they chide easy other about the amount of MSG in their respective products, may have enlarged a concern that previously did not bother most consumers.

"Experts say that while such ads bring important issues to light, they also cause consumer confusion and can kill the category as a whole," according to Elaine Wong in Brandweek magazine.

Paul Kurnit, a marketing professor at Pace University, New York, told Brandweek that the MSG war might scare consumers away from both Campbell and Progresso soups and send them searching for a more wholesome product.

Laura Ries, president of Ries & Ries in Roswell, Ga., told Brandweek that parties getting into negative advertising have to have a "clean house" before launching an attack.