Unfair Competition: Advertising

There only seems to be one place that is more competitive then the world of sports and that is the world of business. Not only are we in direct competition with other companies but we are also competing with businesses in other markets. Everyone wants there business to not only be the best in its given field but wants other businesses from other fields to mimic the plan they follow. With such heavy competition how can we draw a line on what is merely being competitive and what would be unfair business practices?

Google is a great example of a business model to follow. They took a revolutionary idea of how a search engine should work and developed it. For quite a while that single thing was Google’s niche. They mastered it and became a leader in the field of search engines. Then they expanded the brand. Since then Google has become one of the leaders in web applications. I think anyone that has done business or owned a business would love to match the success of Google. Most are striving to achieve the first step made by Google and that is mastering their trade and becoming an industry leader.

That first step is a difficult one and many people work their entire lives and never truly make it there. And then there are those that look to cut corner in order to meet this goal.

One of the biggest mistakes that business can make is in their advertising. When I use the term advertising I am including everything from a television or magazine ad to sending out information about your product to salesmen or talking to customers. One way to easily promote your product is to compare it to the competition’s products. This is an effective way to prove to the consumer that yours is the best out there. The problem arises when businesses using this strategy begin to fudge the facts or attack the competition.

Whenever you make statements about your competitions products and those statements are false or misleading red flags should go up immediately. This can result in your competitor bringing an action against you for defamation, injurious falsehood, and other violations. Advertising should always be truthful and if your product doesn’t look good when compared to the competition’s product then don’t compare them. There are other strategies to promote your products or services that don’t involve a direct comparison or attack of the competition.

Think of Google. How many ads did they run that claimed Yahoo! as being inept or said that Ask.com was so much slower then Google? Google only promoted itself and made strides to better itself. There may have been internal comparisons in order to track progress but Google competed fairly the whole time.

I will post future articles that cover other asspects of unfair competiton.