For 13 years in a row, Avis lost money. Thirteen years.
Then, in 1962, it ran a campaign that said: “Avis is only number two in rent-a-cars, so why go with us? We try harder.”
Which is when it began to make a lot more money.
However, some people take away the wrong lesson from this story.
They didn’t claim to be better than Hertz. They didn’t pretend to be the leader. They said: we’re number two, and here’s why that’s a reason to choose us.
They think Avis succeeded because they literally tried harder, that the message was about effort and hustle. Ries and Trout are clear, this is the wrong interpretation. Avis succeeded because it acknowledged where it sat in the prospect’s mind and used that position to its advantage.
Here's the fascinating part: Avis didn't change the product. It didn't get better cars or friendlier staff or lower prices. It changed where it sat in the customer's head. It accepted the mental hierarchy that already existed and found a way to make its rung work for it.
And for some reason, it then took that tremendous success and tossed it out the window. After the company was acquired, Avis ran a new campaign: “Avis is going to be number one.” That’s advertising your aspirations — telling the market what you wish were true instead of working with what the market already believes. It didn’t work. Ries and Trout call it wrong psychologically and wrong strategically.
Why did the first campaign work and the second one fail? The difference was where they started.
The first campaign started with what already existed in the prospect’s mind — Hertz is number one, and everyone knows it — and built from there.
The second campaign started with what Avis wanted to be true and pushed it outward. The mind accepted the first and rejected the second.
That distinction is the main argument in Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, published by Al Ries and Jack Trout in 1981. Their conclusion:
“You look for the solution to your problem not inside the product, not even inside your own mind. You look for the solution to your problem inside the prospect’s mind.”
The solution to your communication problem is not a better argument, a sharper brief, or a more compelling data set. The solution is understanding what already exists in the mind of the person you're trying to reach — and working backward from there.
They wrote that in 1981, with three television networks and no internet. The environment has gotten worse. The mechanism hasn't changed.
Ries and Trout call this "positioning," and they argue it's the foundational discipline for anyone trying to communicate in an over-saturated information environment.
Before you read another brief or walk into another meeting, ask yourself: What does the person across the table already believe about this issue, about my industry, and about the competitive landscape of stakeholders trying to influence this decision?
If you don’t have an answer, your brief is probably noise to them.
If you do have an answer, you’ve got a shot at a position.