Fighting Fair? Evaluating Negative Campaigning with an Agent-Based Simulation

Abstract

These days, the anonymity of the internet may encourage negative campaigning—spreading information in order to discredit competitors—as a means of gaining an advantage when contending for market dominance. To investigate the effects of negative campaigning as a measure to prevent some competing products or services from achieving a winner-take-all situation, we expand an agent-based simulation of a vampire economy developed to study the emergence of dominant designs. It turns out that the applied negative campaigning indeed works as intended, though other products or services, if technologically superior, profit as well. In our simulation experiments, the prospects of reaching a winner-take-all situation oneself therefore are still better if sticking to traditional marketing, which is, moreover, less risky in terms of an unwanted backlash against a company or individual spreading negative campaigning.