Another example: long form sales pages. They've been discussed here on Hacker News before, and many people here hate them, but they do (apparently) convert very well.

I should have thought of that example.

Yes, long-form sales pages are an excellent example, which I can personally attest do indeed work.

not that it's the same at all, but your great question made me think of negative political ads. I can't find any research that clearly shows how effective negative campaigning is, but apparently >70% of ads this election season were negative or attack ads (http://mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/2012/05/02/jump-in-negativi...). That feels like a lot and I can't imagine that the smart people working on these campaigns would spend so much here if it didn't work as well as other tactics. I'd love to see metrics here too.

What we need here is a small campaign based on votes with an easily-polled, easily-targeted demographic, a few thousand dollars to spend on media buys, and no morals...

Totally agree. Writing "X vs Y" posts is a pretty common and effective inbound marketing tactic (it tends to be a common search query across buyers).

Here's an explanation of why and how it works: http://www.thesaleslion.com/blog-talk-about-competition/

Personally I feel that this marketing tactic is ingenuine, especially since these comparisons are coming from their own blog. Any observant reader would have noticed the obvious bias, which raises a question about the credibility of claims.

The one vs that comparisons will have been much more effective coming from a tech review site.

So the answer is no, you have no metrics. You have a vague belief without evidence.

you are absolutely right. I do not have metrics, and I do not intent to spend anymore time finding it. If you are able to get some supporting/contradicting evidence please feel free to share it.

It's the marketing equivalent of meth. Does it sell? Yes. Should it? No.

It's also a symptom of "flash in the pan" products.

Can you expand more on the second point? I'm not sure I see a correlation between marketing techniques that were unpopular with one or another social group and being "flash in the pan".