A fact on its own can be hard to judge. A price, performance, or injustice often becomes meaningful only when you place it beside the right second thing. Put the right two things together, and the audience can see the argument for itself. Here are six ways to do it.
- Put the Rival in the Frame
- Change the Measure
- Make the Equivalent Visible
- Hold Everything Constant Except the Bias
- Put the Promise Beside the Reality
- Show With and Without
1. Put the Rival in the Frame
Make the competing choice part of the execution so the difference can be judged directly.
Eggs · Aldi Ireland · Pablo · 2026
Tesco had begun telling shoppers it could match Aldi’s prices on selected products. Aldi responded with a carton of glum animated eggs contemplating one question: if you want Aldi prices, why not simply go to Aldi?
Tesco’s price match was meant to make switching unnecessary. Aldi made it sound like an unnecessarily complicated way to buy something at Aldi’s price. The rival was not merely mentioned. Its own proposition became the evidence for Aldi’s.
Twice the Price Store · Sprint · Droga5 · 2017 — Sprint opened a pop-up next to a Verizon store where ordinary products cost twice their normal price. A recurring phone-bill difference became the familiar sting of being overcharged in a shop.
FedEx vs DHL Van · FedEx · 2000 — A FedEx van was painted to look as though it were overtaking a DHL vehicle. The moving medium performed the speed claim rather than printing it.
2. Change the Measure
If the brand cannot win the accepted comparison, show that the audience is measuring the wrong thing.
There Is Another Way · P&O Ferries · Publicis•Poke · 2023
Ferries look disadvantaged when travel is judged mainly by speed. P&O widened the calculation. Its posters compared cramped seats, luggage restrictions and disruption with space, freedom and the feeling that the holiday had already begun.
The messages appeared around airports and railway stations, where travellers could recognise the trade-off from experience. P&O did not need to make its ferries faster. It made speed look like a fairly miserable way to choose a holiday.
The BillBoard · OpenTable · 2045 · 2026 — A towering restaurant receipt itemised a lifetime of unpaid maternal labour before arriving at a total of $0.00. OpenTable changed the measure of a Mother’s Day meal from what dinner costs to everything a mother has never charged for.
Tab Closed · Michelob ULTRA · Wieden+Kennedy New York · 2026 — Messi’s two decades of World Cup appearances, goals and records became an endlessly printing bar tab. The receipt concluded that after everything he had given football, he owed the game nothing.
