Advertising With The Enemy

While watching a Foster Farms chicken commercial today it seemed odd to me that a company would use what is essentially the competition in their advertising.

If you haven't seen a commercial from Foster Farms, they basically consist of two larger than life chickens who strive to become 100% fresh and natural Foster Farms chickens even though they have a lifestyle that puts them at odds with the Foster Farms philosophy.

This means that this company uses a spokesperson that is the exact opposite of what they stand for. Is this a good strategy? Will people associate these unsavory chickens with the chicken that Foster Farms sells? They say that there is no such thing as bad publicity because people see something and remember it and not necessarily because it is good or bad.

We see this on tv in other commercials and especially at this time of the year here in the US. Political commercials often spend a majority of the time talking about the other candidates. It would be interesting to see effectiveness of this strategy in some kind of study.