How Avis made the best of — not being the best
We all want to be known as the first, best, or biggest — don’t we? If someone has already been labeled that before us, what do we do? We work hard, in trying to overtake them.Well not Avis. Instead, Avis searched for a silver lining in the cloud they found themselves in.
Avis admitted that Hertz was the first car rental company in the world, and consumers were aware of that too. This positioned Hertz as a market leader in the minds of those that matters the most, consumers.
Your typical competitor would have not hesitated but spend all their marketing efforts on trying to overtake Hertz to take their number one spot in the minds of consumers.
Avis instead decided to look for a reason to appear better than Hertz without looking ‘bigger’ than them. Avis decided to publicly acknowledge Hertz as number one and proclaim that their company was second. This was not an easy task as publicly referring to themselves as No.2 could lead to consumers thinking their service is second-best.
Avis then explored opportunities and competitive advantages of being second best, which led to their famous slogan: “we try harder.”
Their slogan is effective because it’s simple, meaningful, memorable.
Avis promised to please even more than the leader, Hertz. And people responded positively to Avis’s sincere desire to please.
Take a look at the execution of Avis’s brand positioning strategy below:
Their initial ad campaign had what most called the most famous last line in advertising history:
“The line at our counters is shorter.”
I really enjoyed reading about Avis and how it positioned themselves — and It would have been ‘greedy’ of me not to share this with you, especially those who weren’t familiar with Avis’ brand positioning strategy.
The power is in their simplicity, I doubt there’s any “comeback” that Hertz can do that will stick in the minds of consumers like Avis’s brand positioning.
This is brilliant!
Very interesting. Having worked for a company before that was second largest, it’s given me new insights.
Of course the article is from a worldwide perspective. In South Africa Avis is in fact the largest, with Hertz some distance behind.
What’s shaken things up a bit in the “boring” SA car rental industry, is Imperial Car Rental changing their branding to Europcar from 1 June….watch this space.
South African,
Firstly, I so wished I could refer to you by your name. But I respect your choice not to mention it.
I agree, this is from a worldwide perspective. I wasn’t even aware that Hertz has a presence here in South Africa — which gets to show how much behind they are.
I heard from a radio ad, regarding Imperial’s rebranding to Europcar. I’m interested to see how their rebranding works out .
I’m glad you’ve gotten new insights from this. Welcome and thanks for taking your time to share your views — it definitely adds value to this post.
i think its well played by Avis, but don’t see why it’s not possible for Hertz to come back swiftly with: “we didnt become #1 by accident.. we became #1 because customers love how we serve them.. we earned #1, one satisfied customer at a time.. use us, cause u deserve a lot better than 2nd best” ?
mh,
I think it’s hard to outdo someone who publicly admit that you are bigger than them — but still manages to find a simple yet memorable and meaningful way for consumers to choose them over you.
I think the issue from your proposed comeback is that while that is a solid argument to try win the consumers’ hearts — it’s way too long as opposed to the story Avis managed to attach to only three words — “we try harder.”
I believe it’s better to have a story behind a brand that is easily evoked by the mention of the brand’s slogan — rather than making the story itself, the slogan. Like in your example.
Thanks for sharing your views.
Thanks for sharing… It’s an interesting strategy. A bold decison to publicly acknowledge its number 2 position. Would help in easy brand recall because of its slogan and also because of the advantage stated in the last line: “The line at our counters is shorter.”
Was just wondering, since this is a global campaign and doesn’t necessarily reflect the brand positioning in every country, isn’t it slightly confusing?
Ujjayini Bezbaruah,
That’s quite an interesting question, I think that they can argue that that’s how things are in Avis’s native country — but the strategy actually loses meaning in countries where Avis is not the second leading car rental company.
And on the other hand, “we try harder” will still make sense, so long as Avis isn’t a leading brand in the particular country. Because a number 3,4,5… can still be relevant by claiming that they try harder and the fact that the line at their counter is shorter.
So their slogan and brand strategy is not really fixed to “second best” only.