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November 2, 2009

Negative ads: Thin line between love and hate

Some new advertisements slam competitors rather than promote their own products.

By TRAVINA COLEMAN

You can’t watch TV these days without some sort of rivalry advertising slamming the competitor.

Case in point? Windows versus Mac.

Apple’s advertising brings up negative points about what Microsoft Windows can’t do, rather than focusing on what the Mac can do.

So negative advertising and potentially offensive products are everywhere, and seem to be staying around.

Angela Combs said she thinks the banter between the two software companies is a funny TV ad.

“I never thought about it being a negative ad,” she said. “But I guess I can see that. I just thought it was funny.”

As a side note, Combs said she owns a Mac.

Whether it’s negative advertising or products, what’s offensive varies from person to person.

Jason Rosson said he thinks it’s good to think outside the box, as long as it’s not too bad.

“A lot of the advertising is funny,” he said. “I don’t mind it. I mean, as long as they don’t go too far.”

PepsiCo faced some criticism for an iPhone application that promised to help men “score” with several different stereotypes of women by giving the users pickup lines and a score board to keep track of their conquests, according to the Associate Press.

The soda giant offered an apology and did eventually pull the application and then issued an apology via Twitter.

The application lets users pick from the different female stereotypes, like the “foreign exchange student” or “nerd” or “cougar.” Then the app proceeds to offer possible pickup lines like, “Wasn’t I in Space Academy with you?” The application even offered other hints, like links to world news for the foreign exchange student. For the “rebound girl” who just broke up with her boyfriend, the application offers a map of local ice cream shops.

The app then lets users add women — along with name, date of the conquest and comments — to the user’s “brag list,” which can be shared online on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Social networking blog Mashable and other sites have voiced outrage about the application. Mashable’s headline read: “Alienate your female customers? Pepsi has an app for that.”

PepsiCo has since pulled the AMP application, but a lot of online blogs showed mixed reaction to the product.

And people are still blogging about the latest attempt to sell an energy drink, on mashable.com.

“I don’t really get all the hoopla considering Amp didn’t force or trick anyone into downloading their app,” one blogger wrote.

“And the app even comes with an age restriction pop-up before you install it. You’re clearly warned that the content within the app is meant for older audiences. I downloaded the app myself and it’s completely hilarious. The style of humor is not far off from some of the stuff Amp has done in the past.”

Other bloggers felt the apology was good enough and choose to move on with their lives, according to mashable.com.

Lindsey Halpern said the application seemed harmless.

“It’s no different than what a lot of legitimate commercials say sometimes,” she said. “I am a woman, and I don’t care.”

Jason Rosson said he thought the application sounded like fun, but could see the potential of it upsetting women.

“I guess some of it may be offensive to women,” he said.

“How can I get it?”

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