“We can’t afford not to be nice.”

“Can’t afford to make you wait.”

“Can’t afford dirty ashtrays.”

“We’re No.2. We try harder.”

Context: Advertising campaign by Avis (the underdog) vs Hertz (the dominant market leader), a brand power-battle spanning over half a century. A marketing case-study that’s often discussed in business schools.

TRP relevance: We have much to learn from competitive dynamics that have played out in other zero-sum marketplaces.

What surprises me is how almost every business/marketing pundit assumes that Avis screaming out to the world that they're ‘trying harder’ is what caused whatever positive effects they experienced.

Hertz, the iron gorilla, didn’t lose any of its marketshare. By declaring themselves as ‘No. 2’, Avis end up stealing marketshare from the fuzzy bottom end of the market, bumping its stats up by about 10%. Customers who weren’t choosing Hertz (or weren’t able to), end up picking Avis instead of the their tiny local competitors.

Past the big, bold, obvious market leaders, it gets harder to pick out the ‘winners’. In the TRP world, that would translate to SMV 8-5 being rather fuzzy. It’s not difficult to modify the perception of a guy with a 6 SMV into an 8, with a few tweaks.

After a 50 year run, Avis finally dropped its ‘try harder’ tagline. "No. 2 says he tries harder. Than who?" was one of Hertz's bullyish campaign replies.

 

Key Takeaways

 

1) Position Anchoring

By declaring themselves as No. 2, Avis positioned itself as the clear alternative to the market leader. A status play in disguise.

TRP Perspective

  • SMV is relative. Ensure there’s people with a range of 3 SMV points below you, in your arena of choice.
  • Throwing a party? Don’t forget to invite a bunch of low SMV males to fill up the bottom 30%.
  • We’ve all heard of those that keep beta wingmen to help them score. Works better than you’d think.

2) Status trumps Dominance

  • Avis bellowed their position of subordination out loud. That they were the underdogs, that they had to no choice but to try harder.
  • Yet, they hammered home the message that they were No. 2, in a market with 100’s of competitors. Avis and hertz together gobbled up 80%+ of the global marketshare.
  • No one gave a fuck that competitor No. 21 was bleeding cash, trying harder than anyone, with their lives on the line.

TRP Perspective

  • Being high status allows you to get away with beta tendencies. We all know of some overly-nice, skinny, rich, CEO-type who has no trouble getting laid. Dig into the profiles of some of the execs discussed on Techcrunch for examples.
  • Ideally you’d be high status and dominant, but if you had to pick one, go with status-demonstrating characteristics. Scream your status out to the world.
  • Social media validation would be one way that seems to work rather well for a few less-dominant males I know personally. Vanity metrics, twitter counts, retweets etc. do matter. Other ways: being interviewed by bloggers, news sites.

3) Forget not The 30th Law

  • Reiterating Robert Green’s 30th law of power, discussed on TRP a while ago.
  • Make your accomplishments seem effortless. Your sweat and tears stink a mile away. I’m going on a bit of tangent below.
  • This is one I fucked up on until recently. I kept a pretty active Fitocracy profile, logging in my lifts 90% of the time. Potential social circle plate inevitably asks me why my body didn’t match the lifts I claimed to be maxing on Fitocracy.
  • Displays of hard work lead to unwarranted comparisons with the top 1% examples they can summon. “You work 16 hour days, where’s your fucking Maserati?” “You’re at the gym 2 hours a day. Where are your 18 inch biceps?”
    “You’re giving it more than your fucking best. Maybe you’re just not good enough. Give up.”
  • When possible, always portray yourself as the natural. God’s epic gift to womankind.