Years ago when I was designing incentive programs for Carlson Marketing Group I got invited to a customer appreciation night with a vendor that distributed one of the Swiss Army Knife lines. I was admiring the new line of watches on display (I have a weak spot for nice watches) and one of the account managers who looked after the retail channel and started to bad mouth the other Swiss Army Knife company’s watch line. Back then I thought it was in poor taste trashing someone else’s product as a result I bought more from the other Swiss Army Knife company.

Flash forward to this past week, The Economist published an article highlighting the trend in advertising where one brand trashes another. That brought me back to that night in the product showroom and why that made an impression on me. The one bit of marketing advice I stand by is this, DO NOT TRASH OR BAD MOUTH YOUR (CLIENT’S) COMPETITION’S BRAND OR PRODUCTS/SERVICES. Did everyone hear that clearly? Good.

I am well aware times are tough, I am looking for work in PR during a recession, I know how rough it is out there. I am standing by what I said above, trashing your competitor’s products/services in earned and paid media, along with web 2.0 is cheap and smells of desperation. Companies/clients who choose that tone for their key messaging usually are in trouble with their own business.

I am a firm believer in speaking up the attributes of your company’s product/service along with a third party endorsement goes a lot further in earning trust from consumers over the long run. Going down and dirty on a competitor’s product or service could blow back and customers will question the integrity of your products/services.

It’s a small world, if you were the one who signed off on key messaging for a marketing communications campaign and later on through circumstance are interviewing at your competitor for a position, it could be an interesting conversation. Taking the high road in terms of Messaging will earn more respect for the brand you are working for and you.