Original editorial illustration for Time for Designs—not an original Avis advertisement.
A company spends money on advertising to persuade people to choose it. Telling those people that a competitor is bigger seems an odd place to start.
Yet that was the uncomfortable fact at the centre of one of advertising’s best-known campaigns. Avis acknowledged its position behind the market leader and turned it into a reason to give the smaller company a chance.
The promise was only three words: “We try harder.”
Those words are so familiar that the idea can now seem obvious. Of course a challenger should present itself as hungry. Of course a smaller business should say it cares more. But familiarity removes the danger that made the original decision interesting. Avis was giving its audience a fact they could interpret as a warning.
The remarkable part was how the advertising answered that warning. It connected the company’s position with the practical details of renting a car. The customer was not being asked to applaud a brave slogan. They were being given a reason to expect attention.
That distinction still matters whenever a business puts a promise on a shop sign, a website, a leaflet or the chest of a uniform. Attractive words can make a business recognisable. The experience behind them determines whether recognition becomes trust.
The admission most businesses would rather avoid
There is a familiar temptation in commercial writing: describe the business as if it has no disadvantages.
The smaller firm becomes an industry leader. The ordinary service becomes exceptional. The limited range becomes a complete solution. Each claim may feel reassuring to the person approving it, yet the result often sounds interchangeable with every other business making the same claims.
Avis took a more uncomfortable route.
The company’s own history records that it had become the second-largest car-rental business in the United States by 1953. It dates the debut of the celebrated advertising campaign to 1963. Avis’s company history
Second place contained two possible meanings. It could suggest a company that had fallen short. It could also suggest a company with more reason to earn the next customer.
The campaign chose the second interpretation.
This did not erase the disadvantage. It changed the question the audience was invited to ask. Instead of concentrating only on which business was largest, a prospective customer could consider which one had the stronger reason to look after them.
That was a positioning decision before it was a writing decision. The words worked because they expressed a particular relationship between the business, its competitor and the customer.
A less interesting advertisement could have avoided the ranking entirely. It could have promised excellent service, convenient rentals and satisfied customers. Nothing about those claims would have explained why a traveller should expect Avis to be different.
The uncomfortable fact gave the promise its shape.
The people behind the promise
Paula Green wrote the Avis slogan while working at Doyle Dane Bernbach, the agency usually known as DDB. The One Club’s appreciation also records her rise to become the agency’s first woman creative management supervisor. The One Club: Paula Green—An Appreciation
Green worked with art director Helmut Krone. The One Club’s account identifies both as part of the team meeting Avis chief executive Robert Townsend in 1963. This was a collaboration between people responsible for words, visual presentation and the business itself. The One Club: Still Trying Harder
It is worth preserving those names because advertising history has a habit of reducing complicated work to one famous agency figure and one lucky sentence.
A slogan is easier to remember than the discipline behind it. But the discipline is what another business can learn from.
Someone has to understand the customer’s hesitation. Someone has to decide which uncomfortable fact can be acknowledged honestly. Someone has to choose how the message looks. And someone inside the company has to accept what the promise will require when customers arrive.
The agency can frame the argument. It cannot clean the car, answer the telephone or resolve a problem at a rental desk.
The campaign therefore depended on something more demanding than approval of a headline: agreement about the experience the business intended to provide.
This is where a good advertising idea becomes a management question. Can the organisation deliver what the words invite people to expect?
Why the line was persuasive
The slogan does not describe a vehicle.
It describes effort, and then invites the audience to connect that effort with the company’s position. The smaller rival has something to prove. The customer’s booking matters. Attention becomes part of the competitive argument.
This is our interpretation of the campaign’s mechanism, rather than a claim that every customer reacted in exactly that way.
The idea is effective because it offers a reason behind the benefit. “Good service” is an assertion. A business explaining why it has a reason to work harder supplies an argument.
People do not always need a detailed operational account before they buy. They do need a credible answer to an ordinary question: why should this company’s promise mean anything?
The campaign answered without pretending that Avis was the biggest business.
It also avoided another trap. It did not ask customers to choose the company solely out of sympathy. The customer’s interests stayed central. Supporting the challenger was presented as a way to obtain a better experience.
That is a useful distinction for smaller firms. A local business may be proud of its history, its independent ownership or its determination. Those things can matter to customers. But the commercial argument becomes stronger when it explains what the customer gains from them.
A statement about the business becomes a reason to buy only when the connection is clear.
There is a considerable difference between asking someone to support you and explaining how you will support them.
The service details made the slogan believable
A general promise of effort would have been easy to dismiss.
The memorable part of the Avis argument was its attention to mundane details. The One Club’s appreciation of Green describes her early advertisements as a kind of operating manual: cars needed to be clean, equipment needed to work and the practical essentials of the rental needed to be right. The One Club: Paula Green—An Appreciation
These were not glamorous benefits. They were precisely the things a traveller would notice.
That gives the campaign a different character from advertising built around an abstract lifestyle. It could be checked. A customer might forget the arrangement of the advertisement but remember whether the car was clean and whether the service was helpful.
A concrete detail carries two advantages.
First, it helps the reader understand what the business means. “We care” might mean almost anything. A promise tied to a particular action narrows the uncertainty.
Second, it gives the business something to organise around. A member of staff cannot reliably deliver an adjective. They can perform an action.
For businesses commissioning printed material, this is often the point at which the useful work begins. The first draft may contain words such as reliable, professional, friendly and quality. Those words are not automatically wrong. They are simply incomplete.
The next question is what someone would see or experience if the statement were true.
The answer may deserve more prominence than the original adjective.
A clear explanation of what happens next can communicate helpfulness more convincingly than repeatedly calling the business helpful. A specific example of careful work can demonstrate attention to detail more effectively than announcing it.
The risk was real
Acknowledging second place was not guaranteed to inspire confidence.
According to The One Club’s retrospective, people inside the agency worried that the admission could make Avis seem inferior. It also describes research in which the message produced divided interpretations. This is a historical recollection, not a customer study independently reconstructed for this article. The One Club: Paula Green—An Appreciation
That reaction is understandable. The argument asked the audience to make a leap. Being smaller does not automatically make a company better. Having something to prove does not automatically produce good service.
The campaign had to bridge that gap.
This is why the lesson is more subtle than “admit a weakness.” A weakness, announced without a customer benefit, is still a weakness. It may simply give someone a reason to go elsewhere.
Nor does the story justify treating uncomfortable research as something creative people should always ignore. Research can identify a real misunderstanding. The responsibility is to judge whether the misunderstanding undermines the proposal, whether the rest of the message answers it and whether the actual business supports the claim.
The Avis idea was interesting because the risk belonged to the central argument. Remove the acknowledgement and the promise loses much of its explanation. Keep it and some people may interpret the company’s position negatively.
That tension gave the work its character. It also made the accompanying proof important.
A brave headline is not necessarily a good headline. The question is whether its risk creates a useful, truthful argument for the customer.
An advertisement can become an instruction
The One Club describes campaign buttons worn across Avis, including by counter and garage staff. The message therefore appeared inside the service, rather than existing only in advertisements. The One Club: Still Trying Harder
A slogan carried by staff creates a particular kind of obligation. It tells the customer what to expect while reminding the wearer what the business has promised.
That can be valuable. It can also be uncomfortable.
A printed promise makes a failure more noticeable. If a company announces that it is helpful, an indifferent response becomes a contradiction. If it promises simplicity, a confusing order process becomes part of the brand story. If it promises attention to detail, a careless error receives additional meaning.
The words do not cause the mistake. They frame it.
This is one reason a brand should be considered across the whole customer journey. A website can look calm and organised while the next step feels uncertain. A uniform can look coordinated while staff give different answers. A leaflet can invite an enquiry without explaining what information the customer needs to supply.
Visual consistency helps people recognise a business. Consistency between the promise and the experience helps them believe it.
The strongest message is therefore one the business can use as a practical instruction, not merely a line it enjoys seeing in print.
The uniform, counter sign and website are not separate promises. To the customer, they are different encounters with the same business.
The promise survived changes in media
The original idea belonged to the world of print advertising, but it was not confined to the original advertisements.
In January 2011, Avis announced a campaign built around letters from customers praising employees. Its release discussed service responses to unexpected travel problems. These were brand-selected accounts, so they should be understood as campaign material rather than an independent measurement of every customer’s experience. Avis’s original 2011 campaign release
The choice of material is revealing. The advertising returned to the relationship between a promise and a person’s account of what happened.
A slogan can be repeated almost indefinitely. Evidence has to be renewed.
A customer story gives the promise a setting, an action and a consequence. It can show what extra effort means in circumstances where the ordinary process has failed.
This remains useful when a business is deciding what belongs on its website. A statement of capability answers one question. A well-chosen example can answer another: what does that capability look like when someone needs help?
Examples should be accurate, permissioned and relevant. A fabricated story or an overstated testimonial damages the very trust it is intended to create.
The principle is straightforward: let the evidence demonstrate the promise, rather than using the promise as a substitute for evidence.
That does not require exposing customers’ personal details. Useful evidence can also come from accurately explained work, approved examples, clear specifications and a transparent account of what the customer can expect.
A classic idea met a new technology
In 2012, Google’s Project Re: Brief brought creators of famous advertising campaigns together with technologists to reconsider their work for digital media. Paula Green and the Avis campaign were among the participants.
Google’s own account identifies the project and its documentary, directed by Doug Pray. Google: Project Re: Brief, the documentary
The project is a useful reminder that a strong advertising idea is not the same thing as a fixed layout or a particular medium.
The printed advertisement was one expression of the argument. A button was another. A customer letter offered a different form of proof. Digital tools could offer further ways to tell or demonstrate the same underlying idea.
That does not mean every old campaign should be revived. Nor does it mean technology automatically improves a message.
A new format gives a business more possibilities, including more ways to become distracting. The useful test is whether the format makes the central idea clearer or the evidence easier to understand.
For a small business, that can be a modest decision. The same customer promise might appear briefly on a sign, be explained on a service page and be supported by a specific example elsewhere. Each piece has a different job.
Repeating the same paragraph everywhere is unnecessary. Preserving the same meaning is much more important.
A sign needs to be understood quickly. A website can answer the questions the sign cannot. A printed handout can give someone information to take away. Consistency does not mean ignoring the way each item is used.
What the story does—and does not—prove
Avis’s campaign has an established place in advertising history. The company includes it in its own chronology, Green’s contribution is recognised by The One Club, and the work was revisited in later campaigns and Google’s project. Avis history, The One Club’s appreciation, Google’s project account
Those facts establish longevity and recognition. They do not establish that a three-word slogan single-handedly transformed the company’s finances.
Historical accounts sometimes attach dramatic commercial figures to famous campaigns. This article does not repeat them because a business result involves more than advertising, and precise figures require careful reconciliation.
Operations, leadership, investment, pricing, availability and competitive conditions can all affect performance. A persuasive message can help a business get considered. The business still has to fulfil the demand it creates.
This is a more useful conclusion than a miraculous success story. It leaves the reader with something they can examine in their own business rather than a promise that clever words will solve everything.
The lesson is that a clear argument and a credible experience can support each other.
Advertising gets stronger when the company gives it something true to say.
It can also expose a gap. If the most attractive message cannot yet be supported, the answer may be to improve the service before enlarging the claim.
Copying the slogan would miss the point
A smaller business does not need to advertise that it is second.
In many markets, there is no reliable or meaningful ranking to claim. Customers may care more about location, suitability, deadline, advice or the ease of getting the work organised.
Borrowing the underdog stance without understanding those questions can become another form of generic advertising.
The Avis campaign began with a particular fact and interpreted it in a way that served the customer. Another business needs to find its own facts.
A narrower range might support a clear specialism. A local base might make it easier to discuss a requirement in person. A careful quotation process might help a buyer avoid ordering something unsuitable. But those connections must be real, and their value must be explained.
There is no automatic advantage in being small, local, independent or specialised.
There is an advantage in knowing what a suitable customer needs and showing how the business can help.
The message should emerge from that understanding. It should not force the business into a story because the story worked elsewhere.
The right question is not “How can we sound like Avis?” It is “What can we honestly say that helps someone choose us?”
Find the promise before putting it in print
At Time for Designs, the practical interpretation of this history begins before choosing colours, type or a photograph.
Ask what the customer most needs to understand.
Then ask what the business can promise with confidence.
Finally, identify the visible evidence that makes the promise credible.
Those questions can improve a sign, a printed leaflet or a website page because they give the design something definite to communicate. The visual work can then establish order: the main point first, useful detail next and a clear route to help.
For a practical next step, our business printing guide explains the different printed pieces a business can use and what to prepare when discussing a job.
A simple exercise is to write five short statements:
- The customer’s main uncertainty.
- The promise that answers it.
- The action staff take to fulfil it.
- The evidence a customer could observe.
- The next step the customer should take.
If the evidence line is empty, the promise may need more work. If the staff-action line is unclear, the message may be difficult to deliver consistently. If the next step is missing, the material may attract attention without helping someone proceed.
This is not a formula for a famous campaign. It is a way to make ordinary commercial communication more useful.
The three words that made Avis memorable were supported by an argument about the customer’s experience. That argument is the part worth studying.
A promise customers can carry away
The lasting attraction of the Avis idea is its combination of ambition and restraint.
It expresses effort without pretending that the company has no rival. It acknowledges a difficult fact and offers a customer-centred interpretation. It provides a standard against which the service can be judged.
A business does not need an iconic slogan to apply that discipline.
It needs a promise the customer understands, evidence that supports it and people prepared to deliver it.
The sign, uniform, leaflet and website can then carry the same meaning. When the experience matches, the message becomes more than something the business says about itself.
It becomes something a customer has a reason to remember.