I recently heard a national press club address on the ABC, in which one of the subjects addressed was the image of politicians and politics in Australia and more broadly, around the world. The speaker highlighted a conversation that he’d had some months previously with the marketing manager of Burger King in the United States. […]

I recently heard a national press club address on the ABC, in which one of the subjects addressed was the image of politicians and politics in Australia and more broadly, around the world. The speaker highlighted a conversation that he’d had some months previously with the marketing manager of Burger King in the United States. During the course of that conversation, they discussed the fact that Burger King was still number 2 and the speaker asked the marketing manager of Burger King why they had never used “anti McDonalds” advertising or “negative” advertising in their campaign to become number 1. The marketing manager responded by saying that “negative” advertising is in his mind akin to “category killing” advertising. In other words, if Burger King were to become overly critical of McDonalds, the chances are they would do as much damage to the category, fast food, as they would to McDonalds.…