"Fast Internet access when and where you need it!"

According to Goldenburg, Mazursky and Solomon (1999), there are six fundamental templates to good quality advertising; one of these templates is the competition template. The researchers described the competition template as an advertising pattern to portray situations in which a product is subjected to competition with another product or event from a different class.

A good example of a competition template is evident in the advertisement above, where the Internet speed of an EPhone900 is directly compared to the speed of a snake ready to strike. The way the picture of the snake is opening its mouth threateningly makes the viewers panic, whilst on the other hand, the human casually searches “How to dodge a snakebite?” in the Google search bar on the new technology (at the time). The casualty portrayed of being able to search methods to protect yourself from a snake ready to attack you seems to slow down time.

Once the advertisement captivates its viewers with a little humour from the unique and indirect juxtaposition, it shows a caption that says “Fast Internet access when and where you need it. EPhone 900.” This statement clarifies the main message of the advertisement: EPhone 900 allows the consumers of the product to have an Internet access so fast that they could look up how to dodge a snakebite even before the snake could strike!

Goldenburg, Mazursky and Solomon (1999) reported three versions of the competition template: The attribute in competition version, the worth in competition version and the uncommon use version. This particular advertisement uses the attribute in competition version of the template, as the product (EPhone 900) competes against an object (the snake), which is known for the same attribute, i.e. being fast.

 Reference:

Goldenberg, J., Mazursky, D. et al. (1999). The fundamental templates of quality ads. Marketing Science, 333-351.