Avis launched the “We Try Harder” campaign in 1962 to acknowledge its second-place position in the American car-rental market.
Created by the Doyle Dane Bernbach agency, the campaign turned a competitive weakness into a promise of better service. Instead of pretending to be the market leader, Avis openly said that being number two gave it a reason to work harder for customers.
The approach reflected a major shift in advertising: a brand could gain credibility by admitting an unfavorable fact and reframing it. The campaign helped Avis compete against Hertz and became one of the best-known examples of positioning in modern advertising history.
The slogan is sometimes confused with Avis’s broader customer-service messaging or with later “number two” advertising. Its distinctive historical importance is the direct connection between Avis’s rank and its promise to make extra effort.