Marketing project on

Pot shot marketing

Prepared by:

Mayur Gupta

Neelima Jain

INTRODUCTION

The increased competition among the companies, more choosy customers have forced the companies to think of new marketing strategies which could help them gain extra share of the market.

All such efforts have given birth to one of the emerging concepts in the field of marketing-Pot shot advertisement.

Pot shot marketing is creating a commercial or advertisement and therein reflecting company’s products better than that of competitors while giving an indirect hint of which competitor is being referred without naming the competitor.

Pot Shot is also used as a marketing gimmick by some companies to distract the consumers from competing brands. By creating such commercials they try to change the perception of customers about the existing products and provoke the customers in such a manner that they are influenced to try out new products.

Many companies have used this strategy as a part of their overall strategy to build their customer base. These advertisements are launched, become hot discussion topics charging the whole industry for that product and then slowly vanish.

Whether it really brings benefit to the consumers is not but it definitely brings smile to the faces of people who watch the commercial because the sarcasm used in the advertisements is something which is most enjoyed.

ADVANTAGES/EFFECTIVENESS OF POT SHOT MARKETING:

Pot shot marketing has emerged as one of the very successful strategies and many companies are using it to their advantage. The sudden increase in the number of pot shot examples highlights its importance and the advantages it offers to the companies.

Following can be some of the advantages which pot shot marketing offers:

1. Makes advertisements interesting pot shot commercials are usually more interesting to pay attention (both in print media and in audio visual media). Pot shot advertisements are mostly distinct from the normal advertisements and thus are a very effective tool to catch customer attention. Customers usually enjoy watching such commercials and thus serve the purpose of advertisement for the company.

2. Very effective tool to persuade customers that its product is better By indirectly comparing its own product to the products which are leaders in the market or which consumers perceives as quality products, a company is able to persuade customers that its products are comparable to existing quality products or even better than that. Such commercials makes customer think twice before buying the existing product and thus encourages him to try out products of other companies as well.

3. Helps companies get market share Pot shot marketing by the virtue of its effectiveness to convince customers and by reflecting competitor’s products are inferior to its own products, the company is able to increase its sales as customers start trusting the product. This helps the company to penetrate further into the market and increase its market share.

4. Creates challenges for competitors whose benefit finally accrues to you Pot shot commercials are like death sword for the competitors who see their market share being eroded due to competitor’s strategy. So while the competitor looses out in the game, the company launching pot shot advertisement gains from this loss to the competitors.

DISADVANTAGES OF POT SHOT MARKETING

Not every time the company launching pot shot marketing benefits. In many cases it may turn out to be a loss generating strategy.

So following can be some of the disadvantages/negative efforts of pot shot marketing:

1. Huge cost involved pot shot marketing involve reaching out to the masses and informing them about the company’s product being better than other products. This in most of the cases involves huge cost which needs to be covered by increase sales volume.

2. Uncertainty over effectiveness of advertisement companies can never be sure of how customers would take the commercial –whether customers perceive the product as it was expected or the customers just reject the company’s claim.

3. Risk of legal action against it there is always a probability that the competitor against whom this commercial is launched may file a case against you and then you might have to face a lot of legal problems. The company might even have to face penalty payment which can offset the gain from advertisement, if any.

HOW SHOULD A COMPANY RESPOND WHEN ITS COMPETITOR LAUNCHES A POT SHOT ADVERTISEMENT AGAINST IT?

Pot shot marketing strategies are usually used by companies who do not enjoy a major market share or those who want to directly target the products of industry leader with the purpose of gaining business and market share by reflecting that its competitor’s products are not efficient as compared to its own products.

But how should the company which is being targeted respond to its competitor’s action? These can be some of the probable actions the company can take:

1. Simply ignore under this, the company can simply ignore the pot shot advertisement. Company does adopt this strategy when they believe that their product is already a quality product and their market share would remain unaffected because of such cheap tactics by the competitors. However the company should not keep a blind eye to the actual results of pot shot advertisement. It should continuously keep monitoring its market share and take action if it feels itself loosing out.

2. Company in return comes out with pot shot ad and thus engages in a potshot war sometimes companies decide to fight with its competitors and thus take revenge. In such circumstances companies creates advertisements which show that its products are actually better than those of competitors. But actually there is no strong reason why a company should come up counter pot shot commercials. It simply adds to the cost of company. It can come up with normal ads highlighting its product features rather than showing its competitor’s products worse than its own.

3. Take a legal action companies not going for any of the above 2 actions sometimes decide to take a legal action wherein they file case against the competitor. Such an action could land the competitor in trouble if it looses because firstly it would invite a penalty and secondly it bears the risk of creating a negative image for itself. For the company filing the suit it is a bonus if it wins the case however suffers a lot also if it fails to win the case.

So these were some of the alternatives available to a company when a competitor launches a pot shot commercial against it. However before using deciding on any of the alternatives, company needs to properly evaluate what is the present result of that potshot advertisement and what will be likely impacts and consequences if it adopts any counter strategy.

CONSUMER’S PSYCHOLOGY

Pot shot marketing revolves around playing with the customer’s psychology. Success of any such strategy depends upon how customers take the strategy. If the customers think in the same direction as the company, then it benefits the company else it would be a fruitless exercise for the company.

So here is a brief outline of customer’s mindset.

What the companies think the consumer must be thinking

Whenever a company launches a pot shot commercial against its competitor it plans out that the customers would believe that its products are now worth buying and are better than market leader’s products. Thus the company believes that by reflecting competitor’s products as outdated or inferior it will be able to make the consumer shift from existing competitor’s products to its own goods.

What the customer actually might think

a) Yes, product is actually better - Here the customer completely believes in what the company claims in its products. So customer actually starts treating company’s products as comparatively better than the existing products. He develops a psychology that buying the existing products would now be loss of money and value and finds immense value being served in the products of the company which launched pot shot commercial and thus bring success to the efforts of the company.

OR

b) No, the existing product is better - Here the customer which trusts the existing product so strongly that he believes that the company is using cheap tactics to make sales and all the claims are baseless and thus never try out the product and stick to their existing products. In such cases the company’s efforts go waste and even result in negative image for the product and the company.

ETHICS AND POT SHOT MARKETING

Ethics are socially acceptable values which guide most of the decisions. They are something which is given considerable importance by all the sections of market.

The basic essence of pot shot marketing lies in displaying your competitor’s products inferior to your own. But they raise a very important issue that is it violating or hurting the business and marketing ethics?

There can be 2 points of view to this:

1. It is completely fair some people may argue that there is no violation of ethics in doing pot shot advertisement. The basic objective of every company is to develop its business and gain market share and is free to choose the strategy it thinks will work best for it even if it means portraying competitors as weak among the masses.

The people having these thoughts believe that it is their responsibility to display the truth to the customers. By creating such commercials they are facilitating the customers to make a better and right choice. Through such commercials it is comparing competitor product to its own and thus giving customer an insight view of the product.

2. It is violation of ethics we have another school of thought as well who may think that targeting a competitor products is morally and ethically wrong and is in bad spirit. Such actions they believe is discouraging healthy competition among the competitors.

A competitor can advertise its own product highlighting its features and even mention that such features are not present in other products but cannot indirectly name the company whose products are being shown as inferior.People belonging to this school of thought feels that it rather confuses customers than benefit as it unnecessary makes him think which of the two product is actually better now?

REAL LIFE EXAMPLES OF POT SHOT MARKETING

Micromax vs apple

The Indian phone manufacturer Micromax had once poked fun at Apple's "If you don't have an iPhone, you don't have an iPhone" tagline by coming up with its own "Now even I have a phone 4 sure." "We wanted to challenge the notion that innovation comes at a price. The advertisement conveys to the young consumers that here's a smart phone that you can afford," says Pratik Seal, the company's marketing head.

Thus through such advertisements Micromax wanted to directly target the global quality mobile phone maker Apple.

Micromax vs Samsung

Micromax is currently the third largest player in the mobile handset market of India. It has taken on world's biggest smartphone manufacturer Samsung with advertisements that take a pot shot at the latter's Galaxy Y budget Android phone. Micromax is has quite obviously targeted Samsung as it seems to be in no mood to lose the segment of Android phone users. Its advertisements build upon Samsung's phrase "aapke paas nahi hai uncle" and belittle the South Korean company's smallest phone in the Galaxy series by ridiculing its screen size and processor speed.

The advertisements broadcast by Micromax feature a couple of youngsters highlighting the so called drawbacks of the Galaxy Y smartphone, without ever taking any names. Throughout the advertisement, the background score, unsurprisingly, repeats the word "Y." The advertisement concludes with a quick round-up of Micromax Ninja 3.5 and 4's advantages over Samsung Galaxy Y, namely "Bigger, Faster, Better", along with the question, "Why Y?"

Royal stag vs McDowells’s No 1

Another example of pot shot advetisement that got much limelight after its release was

McDowell's No.1 Platinum advertisement featuring MS Dhoni taking a dig at Royal Stag

advertisement featuring Harbhajan Singh.

Pernod Ricard's largest-selling whisky in India, The Royal Stag ad shows the Indian spinner

opting to not work in his father's ball bearing factory and focus on cricket instead. At the end,

he asks the viewer if with his achievements he has "made it large" in life. Taking a dig at the

commercial and Royal Stag's tagline 'Make it large', the McDowell's No. 1 Platinum(whisky

brand of United Spirits) commercial shows a Bhajji look-alike making ball bearings the size of

gym balls at his father's factory, asking if he had "made it large", only to get slapped by his

father for being incompetent. Then it shows Dhoni saying, "Zindagi main kuch karna hai to large

chodo, kuch alag karo yaar."

Kingfisher vs jet airways vs go air

It is all about survival of the fittest and this frugal attempt by the airline company’s made it loud

and clear. A classic example of pot shot marketing where Jet airways naively placed a billboard

with an élan that they have changed that resulted into a strategic play by Kingfisher by blatantly

taking the credit of the former’s change. But this wasn’t enough. To further, hoarse the bare-

knuckle fight, Go Air placed his plot on top confronting that they haven’t changed a bit and is

the smartest of the lot. As brutal as it can get!

Pepse vs coke

One of the most classic example of Pot Shot advertising would be the rivalry between CocaCola

and PepsiCo. Ltd. The latest being “Seedhi Laat” advertisement of Sprite (a brand of CocaCola)

aimed to puncture the Youngistaan concept of PepsiCo.

Pepsi’s ad (made by JWT) shows actor Ranbir Kapoor making a desperate attempt to climb to his

girlfriend’s (Deepika Padukone’s) balcony at night, and falling down instead. Hearing the noise,

the girl’s elder brother (Shah Rukh Khan) walks out demanding an explanation. Kapoor, inspired

by a hoarding nearby, comes up with the word Youngistaan and pretends to be a creature from

outer space, from a land called Youngistaan. Thus, he gains entry into Padukone’s room and

gains access to Pepsi as well, thanks to the impressed brother.

Sprite’s ad is a rather direct spoof on Pepsi. The Sprite spoof, created by O&M, has the same

setting depicted in the Youngistaan TVC. The film opens on a Ranbir Kapoor look-alike making

outlandish attempts to enter the home of his girlfriend (a woman made to don the exact look

and clothes as Padukone), while avoiding her over-protective brother (an SRK look-alike). When

the girl’s brother demands to know where the boy is from, the Kapoor replica fumbles, saying he

is from Junglistaan (dressed as a savage man), or Kabadistaan (with items of garbage all over

him), or even Firangistaan (with loads of white cement over his face). Not amused, the brother

slams the door on him each time.

Cut to a shot of the Sprite boy who is seen walking casually into the house through the door, like

any normal person would, and SRK allows him in as he is a ‘padosi’ (neighbour). When Kapoor’s

look-alike sees the Sprite boy in the girl’s balcony, he asks him how he managed to get into the

house. “Darwaze se (from the door),” comes the straight answer. The film ends on ‘Yeh Hai

Hindustan Meri Jaan’ (taking off from Pepsi’s ‘Yeh Hai Youngistan Meri Jaan’), while Sprite’s

tagline, ‘Seedhi baat, no bakwaas’ is also leveraged.

SOME OTHER EXAMPLES OF POT SHOT MARKETING

1) Rin v/s Tide

It can be termed as the recent spat between Rin and Tide (a classic case of combative advertising, a step ahead then comparative advertising), wherein ‘Tide se kahin behatar safedi de Rin’ tagline left P&G bruised with in-your-face reply from HUL. The ad was taken off-air after hogging much of a limelight.

2) Set Wet Zatak v/s axe

The ad came out in 2008, as a retrospection of the popular Axe commercial featuring model Jeanene Fox, that showed the man spraying the deo brand all over his body, drooling thousands of women over him. The spoof made a humorous attempt with a bare-body skinny lad, manoeuvring two axes in his hands in order to lure the ladies. But he goes unnoticed over a killer dresser in black with the VO “Get Set Wet Zatak. Get Very, Very Sexy’. The commercial gained enough eyeballs to turn the brand’s head around.

Pot shot marketing as we know has its examples not only in brands but also in other fields. For example this example from Bollywood shows us the varied applications of pot shot

There is a very popular case of Bollywood actors such as Aamir and Shahrukh. Aamir Khan, who is infamous for taking verbal shots at Shahrukh Khan, took a jab at the superstar for winning the Best Actor award for his performance in My Name Is Khan. Talking about the Indian Razzies - The Golden Kela Awards, Aamir said, "I love the Kela awards because the others are rubbish and sold" He then added, "Like someone recently gave the Best Actor award to Shah Rukh Khan." He also went on to say that Salman Khan should have won it for Dabangg or Ajay Devgan for Once Upon A Time In Mumbai. In fact, Aamir's dog is also named Shahrukh. The Bollywood stars have very often taken verbal pot shots at each other which they claim is all in good spirits.

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