Avis

Avis was having loses and loosing market share to its most fierce competitor, Hertz.

For this ad, Helmut Krone used the opposite format as for the VW ad.  Instead of a small headline under a big picture, the headline was big and run across the top of the page.  Krone comment on this:  “It was a mathematical solution.  I made everything that was big, small, and everything that was small, big”.

Paula Creen was the copywriter and creator of “Avis is only No.2 in rent cars. So why go with us?  We try harder.” Even when the ad scored poorly in consumer panel testing, Bernbach presented it to the client anyway.

In terms of layout, the trend in the industry was to make headlines smaller and smaller.  The fashion was to write three strong, meaningful words that could be set in a very small type.  Following his own philosophy about newness, Krone decided to change this trend and look for a page style so that one can tell the ad at a distance of 20 feet.