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I have a friend who is so irritated by advertisements breaking into his TV sports viewing that he has vowed to boycott those advertisers鈥� products. Has anyone studied negative responses to advertising like this, or the possible negative effect of sports-shirt sponsorship? Certain soccer clubs 鈥� Real Madrid and Manchester United, for example 鈥� are intensely disliked by more people than support them. Has sponsoring such a team ever damaged sales or the popularity of the firm whose name appears on its shirts?
Plenty of apocryphal answers, but discovering how true they are is difficult. Here are the most plausible 鈥� Ed
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鈥� Brands provide information, and are 鈥� perhaps counter-intuitively 鈥� used mainly by people to avoid that particular brand. For example, the British radio station Classic FM attracts its target audience, but the information in its name is mainly used by people who want to avoid classical music.
Negative consumer pressure can result in a final product or its ingredients being bland and insipid. This often happens when products are jointly consumed, such as when a meal is eaten by the whole family.
Food manufacturers can get away with a product that is bland, but they can鈥檛 get away with a product that most people think is excellent but a few hate, as a single hater can change the consumption patterns of a whole family. It also applies to restaurant menus. Restaurants have to provide meals with every course acceptable to every customer. If one customer hates the food, they will avoid the restaurant and take their group with them.
Another example can be seen in 鈥榮 study of films in the 1930s: 鈥淪ome stars had a negative effect at the box office; their names on the marquee repelled more ticket buyers than they attracted,鈥� he noted. This is not just one star leaving some of the audience cold, and nor is it one star having a negative valuation offset by another with a positive valuation. If a film has two stars, each disliked by half the population, then the chances of the film being successful are small. There are a small number of stars who are not bland and do not repel many viewers 鈥� these are the superstars.
鈥淚f a film has two stars, each disliked by half the population, the chances of it being a success are small鈥�
The effect is multiplied by the fact that people often go to films in groups. If one person in the group hates one star, then the whole group will avoid the film.
Peter Bowbrick, Author, The Economics of Quality, Grades and Brands (Routledge, 1992), Edinburgh, UK
鈥� There is a fear of sponsoring football teams that could be unpopular. In the 1980s, the Glasgow double-glazing firm, CR Smith, was afraid of sponsoring only one of the city鈥檚 soccer teams 鈥� Celtic or Rangers 鈥� and so decided to sponsor them both. Since then, telecoms company NTL and brewers Carling and Tennent鈥檚 have followed suit.
Frank Davis, Darwen, Lancashire, UK