The use of comparative advertising in business-to-business direct mail

Abstract

More than twenty years ago, the Federal Trade Commission began to encourage the use of comparative advertising, the aggressive tactic of comparing two or more named or unnamed products in an advertisement. Although numerous articles have been written about this practice since the early 1970s, none has addressed the use of comparative advertising in the direct mail medium, in general, or specifically in business-to-business direct mail. Because sales from direct mail advertising now exceed $120 million annually, and direct mail use in industrial marketing is increasing, this void in the literature needs to be filled. Therefore, this study examined hundreds of pieces of current year business-to-business direct mail advertising to determine the frequency of use and nature of comparative advertising employed in business-to-business direct mail. The results indicate that the incidence of use of comparisons in business-to-business direct mail is less frequent than that found in other business periodicals. Moreover, the nature of direct mail business-to-business comparisons is different in several other respects from those seen in the business print media.