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Number
94: March 30, 2005
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This week in Katydid:
Worst
Case Scenarios
In 1963, Avis
Rent a Car turned itself around with the
"We Try Harder" campaign, turning its number two market
share into a value statement oriented toward customers. It was one
of the most successful re-brandings ever.
Forty-two years later, Avis has turned that slogan on its head with a
series of humorous campaigns. Three years ago, they used advertisements
that showed Avis customers fantasizing about what life would be like
without Avis. The latest twist has the theme, "What if Avis didn't
try harder." It depicts rental car agencies that lack Avis'
dedication to service.
It brings to mind the Keystone
Light beer campaigns with customers drinking the competitor's beer
and getting "Bitter Beer Face."
While these advertisements are humorous, memorable, and receive high
rankings on popularity polls for commercials, they don't serve the
product as well as they could. Oh, they sell the value of the product
just fine. The Avis commercials remind us of the value of customer
service, and the Keystone commercial reminds us that beer shouldn't be
bitter. (Although, our readers from around the world may argue that
point, but then they argue over whether American beer can be accurately
labeled as beer in the first place. I'll give them no argument there.)
Unfortunately, they associate the depicted negative values with the
company. Over time, the association becomes blurred until Keystone
becomes that Bitter Beer Company and Avis is the company where they
don't try at all.
The story is memorable and if simplified it becomes something like
the following: Most products in our category are terrible. Here's a list
of all their terrible qualities. By the way, we're not like that.
Somewhere I read that when you're talking to children, you should
avoid instructing them with the word, "don't." The reason is
was that children either don't hear the word or fail to interpret it
successfully because they focus on the main idea. So, "Don't play
in the street," becomes, "Play in the street."
I don't know if the linguistic science is valid, but as a parent,
I've seen it in action. Positive constructions are easier to understand
and more likely to get results. Better to say, "Play in the
yard," or, "Drink our flavorless beer."
I think the reason these campaigns keep being produced is that the
advertising agencies or the companies fall in love with the story. They
invest so much detail in the joke that they forget the goal of the
advertisement is to associate the brand with value. Moreover, the
commercial is successful with focus groups because it is entertaining,
so it reinforces their perception.
If they tested audiences for their association of value statements
with the company's brand, I suspect the results would be less than
ideal. Unfortunately, that deterioration happens over time and is
possibly misinterpreted as over-saturation of the campaign's messaging.
Avis was much closer with their earlier version of the campaign in
which the customers fantasize about life without Avis because in the
end, Avis was there to rescue them; they woke up from their nightmare to
be safe in their Avis beds.
One example of a campaign that takes negative customer experiences
and turns them into positive associations with a brand experience is for
Midas. In their recent
advertising, they depict customers running through a list of typical
fears and inconveniences customers experience at auto repair shops. The
Midas mechanic is hooked up to a lie detector to verify that they won't
commit these sins. The commercials close with a humorous slip where the
Midas mechanic admits to some embarrassing detail.
In the case of Midas, they depict the genuine concerns of customers,
but show Midas as the solution, while reinforcing values of quality,
honesty, and trustworthiness. It still uses humor and hyperbole to tell
a story, but the winner in that story is the customer who is loyal to
the brand.
In the end, the worst-case scenario might be a great story framework,
but it works best when it puts your brand in a gilded frame.
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Kind regards,
Kevin Troy Darling
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