Why You Should Start a Fight with Your Competitors in Public

Let’s just call it like it is: being nice is boring. Especially in marketing. Especially when you’re trying to get noticed in a world where everyone’s yelling, but no one’s actually saying anything worth listening to. If you want attention, you need conflict. You need drama. You need a rival.

And not just any rival. You need someone to feud with in public. Think Nike vs. Adidas, McDonald’s vs. Burger King, Coke vs. Pepsi. These aren’t just brand wars, they’re modern-day myths. And they work like hell.

A new academic paper dropped in the Journal of Marketing Research that basically confirmed what we already knew deep in our black little ad-industry hearts: public rivalries fuel engagement. Like, a lot. According to the study (“The Rivalry Reference Effect” by Kilduff, Berendt, Uhrich, and Borah), tweets that call out a rival brand get significantly more likes and retweets than ones that don’t. They crunched over 1.5 million real tweets and ran multiple experiments to prove it.

The science says it. But so does the street.

Why Rivalries Work (and Why Yours Should Be Louder)

The reason this works is simple: people love a good fight. It’s human nature. We’re wired for stories, and rivalries are the OG narrative device. Familiar antagonists. Ongoing conflict. Juicy plot twists. That’s the stuff we show up for.

When Burger King trolls McDonald’s by offering free Whoppers near McD’s locations, it’s not just a stunt, it’s a chapter in a saga people already know and love. And when Samsung pushes an Apple logo down the stairs, we don’t think "mean," we think, "ha, they did it again."

And here’s the kicker: you don’t even have to be a fan of either brand to get sucked in. The study found neutral consumers (aka the huge middle of the market) are just as engaged by rivalry content as loyalists are. That means your fight isn’t just preaching to the choir. It’s turning heads.

But... Isn’t That Mean?

Good. It should be a little mean. Not cruel. Not petty. But sharp. Competitive. Strategic. This isn’t about punching down or picking on someone irrelevant. It’s about locking horns with someone who’s already in the arena with you.

That’s the nuance people miss. Traditional advertising wisdom says "don’t go negative" because you might look like a jerk. But that rule doesn’t apply when you’re up against your rival. The social contract changes. People expect banter. They enjoy it. Hell, they root for it.

How to Build a Rivalry That Actually Works

1. Pick the right enemy. Choose someone your audience already sees as your opposite. A true foil. If you’re weird and indie, go after the big soulless monolith. If you’re premium and polished, take shots at the budget brand.

2. Make it emotional. Use the Laugh/Think/Cry test. If your post doesn’t hit at least one of those, it’s not spicy enough.

3. Show up consistently. Rivalries are long games. Don’t lob one tweet and disappear. Build the narrative. Make your fight part of your identity.

4. Be bold, not boring. No one remembers the brand that played nice. Be the one that took a swing.

How to Handle the Backlash (Because There Will Be Some)

Let’s be real: someone will always be mad. Doesn’t matter what you do. But when you publicly poke the bear, expect a few angry DMs, a couple of pearl-clutchers in the comments, and maybe even a think piece or two.

Here’s what to remember: not all outrage is created equal.

Ask yourself this: Are the people complaining actual customers? Or just social media lookers who never intended to buy anything from you anyway?

This is the line in the sand. If real customers with actual purchase history are calling you out, listen. You might have gone too far or hit a nerve in the wrong way. Fix it. Apologize. Course-correct.

But if it’s just randos with 12 followers and an anime avatar yelling into the void? Keep walking. You don’t owe them your strategy.

And let’s not forget the great Cracker Barrel chaos. Remember that firestorm a while back when the brand was "canceled" online for switching up its menu? Turns out a big chunk of that outrage was triggered and amplified by AI bots, not actual people. Fake accounts, fake opinions, fake controversy. It looked like a PR nightmare, but it was mostly noise.

Moral of the story: don’t confuse volume with value. A loud backlash from fake followers is just digital static. Real customers vote with their wallets, not their retweets.

The Bottom Line

In the endless sea of "meh" marketing, rivalry is your weapon of mass attention. It turns dull brand communication into drama. It transforms tweets into storytelling. It makes people feel something — and that, more than anything, is what gets people to act.

So yeah, pick a fight. Make it public. Make it clever. Make it loud.

Because in today’s marketing landscape, safe is forgettable. And forgettable is fatal.

And if you still think playing it safe is smart? Ask yourself this:

When was the last time you had a real conversation about the brand that made you feel nothing?

Exactly.