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The "Slander" Campaign Strategy
Although political smear campaigns made the Slander campaign strategy a household name, it is a viable strategy if it's executed carefully.
In order for this strategy to succeed in more than making the lawyers rich, there are a few things you must keep in mind.
Mention your competition, don’t promote them
They say there is no such thing as bad publicity. There is a tendency to communicate entirely too much about your competition. This amounts to a promoting your competition. Instead, promote the fact that there exists a competition in marketplace. Mention the players and move on.
Compare don’t contrast
The heart of the slander play is to compare yourself to the competition whom you’ve publicly named. Shy away from contrast, or showing your differences. If you are really so different, why are you competing at all. For example, company X and you share many of the same focuses on product quality, production time, and price point. The one clear difference is your company’s core value, say, customer satisfaction or support.
Contextualize your strengths
Slander plays can often focus on the negative. Instead, there value lies in this strategy’s ability to showcase your strengths in the context of your competition. The key is context.
Don’t lie—Identify
Identify, specifically, the weaknesses in your competition. The more specific you are and the more evidence you have to support it, the less room your competition has to retaliate. For example, "company X’s products are returned for service an astonishingly 56% of the time according to a recent Consumer Reports study".
The Slander campaign strategy is the only campaign strategy that often illicit a retaliation. Follow the guidelines above to limit your risk and maximize your opportunity, but consider your recourse if the strategy was focused on you.
Click here for a real-world Slander Play Example
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