You always hear "any publicity is good publicity", but when it comes to negative
How should you handle negative marketing against your products and/or company itself?
Answers
It let's your marketing people create a conversation on how "wrong" the negative message is, and why your value proposition is so "right".
It is essentially handing you a silver platter for promotional value.
At a former company, our marketing so annoyed one of the industry behemoths that they put out a press release showing how much better they were, naming my former company in the release. We were a gnat compared to them. When he saw that, the chairman of my company broke out the champagne. You can't buy that kind of publicity.
And when our sales team was instructed on company narrative, they were told in no uncertain terms, do not talk badly about the competition. All that does is bring the competition to the table in the customer's minds eye.
1) At a very large company, the guy in charge of press told me, "a bad day is when we're above the fold." Do whatever you can to stay out of the fray that you can't control (staying quiet is a good plan).
2) Judo: http://jezebel.com/5952287/maxipad-company-replies-to-mans-facebook-rant-with-awe+inspiring-sarcasm
Think of it as you being at a comedy club. Mock the hecklers or ignore them. Never argue with them.
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