In his bestselling book Up the Organization, former Avis Rent A Car President Robert Townsend had the following advice on working with advertising agencies:
“Don’t hire a master to paint you a masterpiece and then assign a roomful of schoolboy-artists to look over his shoulder and suggest improvements.”
It was this philosophy that made possible one of the greatest campaigns in the history of advertising.
The situation for Avis Rent A Car in 1963 was grim. The company only had a tiny market share in an industry dominated Hertz, and had been losing money for 13 consecutive years.
The problem they faced was that of any industry underdog. They offer a comparable service, but can only afford to spend 1 dollar for every 5 that Hertz spends on advertising. The question then was “How do we get five million dollars of advertising for one million dollars?”
Robert knew that this was a question only the hottest advertising agencies on Madison Avenue could solve, and tried to interest them in the rent a car business. Bill Bernbach of DDB answered that call, but under one condition:
“Most clients put our ads through a succession of assistant V.P.’s and V.P.’s of advertising, marketing, and legal until we hardly recognize the remnants. If you promise to run them just as we write them, you’ll have every art director and copywriter in my shop moonlighting on your account.”
True to his word, Robert entered into a mutual agreement with Bill that preserved the sanctity of the work. These were the rules that governed their engagement:
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What resulted is one of the boldest and most controversial campaigns in the history of advertising: “We’re #2, so we try harder.”
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Everyone hated it. Avis was spending a million dollars to tell consumers that their biggest competitor is the best. Even DDB’s own research department advised against it. Had the agreement not been in place, this brilliant piece of advertising would never seen the light of day.
But it did, and a challenger brand was born. The campaign was incredibly successful partly because Robert made sure that the people at Avis lived up to those promises. Within a year, Avis had already turned a profit, and they had quadrupled their market share in 4 years.
The moral of the story is that the best and most effective advertising campaigns often aren’t safe, and great change takes doing something new. Compromise makes the people behind the desks feel better, but often makes the idea less effective in the real world. You hired the agency for a reason. So trust them.