Particularly during election seasons, we are frequently presented with highly negative political campaign advertising, speeches and social media posts. It is a sad reflection upon the times we live in that so many candidates feel the need – or find it easier – to attack their opponents rather than to highlight their own capabilities, records, and positions on relevant issues. Most of us would welcome a return to civility and an abandonment of mud-slinging. The same applies to advertising consumer oriented businesses.

Comparative advertising has been around for nearly a century – from a campaign in the 1930s when Walter Chrysler encouraged comparison of his new Plymouth automobiles to similar models built by Ford and General Motors – to the presidential campaigns of 2024. In the interim, we have all witnessed battles for market share between cigarette brands (before broadcast advertising of cigarettes was banned in 1971), along with the so-called “cola wars”, “burger wars”, and battles for supremacy between Chevy and Ford full-sized pickup trucks. (I own a GMC Sierra pickup truck, but I was never swayed by advertising, only by previous bad ownership experiences with Ford trucks.) Comparative advertising is rarely successful, except in some instances where it represents a “David” taking on a “Goliath”, and even then, it can often lead to either counterattacks or lawsuits. All in all, the approach just does not make sense. It makes even less sense when a business declares war upon itself.

A Campground Changes Ownership

I recently encountered a campground that had changed ownership and was taking a rather inexplicable marketing approach. I will not identify the business by name; however, the new owners changed the name from “XYZ Campground” to “XYZ Resort & Campground”. Most of us know the difference between a Walmart and a Walmart Supercenter, with one not pretending to be the other. Adding the word “resort” to a business name is not a magic wand that transforms a business overnight. Like “supercenter”, the term implies a much higher standard than simply a name change.

There are valid reasons for rebranding, often accompanying changes in ownership. I have covered this topic at length in the past. Rebranding is often undertaken when a business had earned a negative reputation under former owners, had a name that was easily confused with one or more unrelated businesses with similar names, or had a name that was too closely identified with the personal name(s) of the previous owners. Even then, there are exceptions. Bob’s Discount Furniture was founded by Bob Kaufman, with a single store in Newington, Connecticut back in 1991, after previously selling waterbeds out of multiple locations. Now owned by Bain Capital, there are 150 stores in 24 states. The chain retains the Bob’s Discount Furniture name and even retained Bob Kaufman as its commercial spokesperson for several years, now replaced by the “Little Bob” mascot that is modeled after the original Bob, complete with jeans and yellow polo shirt. Bain Capital knows better than to tamper with success.

In the instance of “XYZ Campground”, the new owners built a new website at XYZresort dot com, while maintaining the original website at XYZcampground dot com, with content that was no longer updated other than a “new ownership” statement on the original site’s Home page. This resulted in two websites competing against one another for SEO, with the old site understandably owning SEO priority. This has certainly been a cause for confusion among potential guests. Making matters worse, the new website referred to the park as a formerly “once forgotten … old, worn-down campground”. Not only was that not a positive marketing strategy, it was an example of a business waging a comparative advertising war against itself!

When I checked in early September of 2024, links and traffic to the old website still existed on several important websites, including Go Camping America, Bing Maps, The Dyrt, RV Life Campgrounds, and the park’s local tourism marketing organization. At minimum, it would have made sense to have the old website redirect to the new URL, but the new owners did not see the wisdom or logic of that. Instead, they have opted to allow the hosting and domain name registration of the original website to simply expire in about a month. There are instances where a domain name has been inadvertently lost for a variety of reasons, and the resulting nightmares can include having the domain – which will continue to generate traffic – become the latest URL for pornography or online gaming with Korean text and graphics. To voluntarily allow a domain to expire is both beyond rationality and a dream come true for a business’s competitors. Think twice before you put your business in this situation … or pay the price.