going off my vague and admittedly rusty memory, there were at least three major examples of this that I personally encountered:
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- The Marvel Civil War story arc in the comics
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- The Twilight Saga Edward Vs Jacob marketing for the movies (which admittedly was handled somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I seem to recall a fast food commercial taking it to what I hope was an intentionally absurd degree)
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- The MCU retread of Civil War from the comics, adapted to the silver screen
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*** 4) Edit: Injustice: gods among us (thanks to u/Kinglion for pointing that one out)***
Whether this was intentional or not is beyond the scope of this screed, but it is interesting to note how many real-world examples of this phenomenon occurred during and after these campaigns, gamergate, the ghostbusters fiasco, the trump/anti trump movements, etc.
maybe it's nothing, or maybe it's something. I honestly have no idea, but the timing is certainly interesting at the very least.
This intra-brand competition marketing has been in comic books for decades. Doing a quick lookup, 1987 had X-Men vs Avengers and X-Men vs Fantastic Four, 1986 had Justice League vs Suicide Squad, and you had JLA vs JSA in 1963.
As for it showing up in other media, not only did comics showed this worked, but this seems like a natural evolution of the Company A Product vs Company B Product marketing strategy that peaked in the 90s. The problem with that model is you're still thinking about Company B. Company A wants you thinking exclusively about its products.
fair point, thanks. something for me to chew on.