Hertz Corporation: Get Tough campaign

William Baue

Hertz's "Get Tough" campaign was motivated by Avis Rent A Car's anti-Hertz ads from 1962 to 1966.

Hertz Corporation: Get Tough campaign

William Baue

Overview

Hertz's "Get Tough" campaign was motivated by Avis Rent A Car's anti-Hertz ads from 1962 to 1966. Avis Rent A Car's advertising agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB), waged an unre lenting attack on the market leader, Hertz, based on a simple slogan, "We try harder." DDB's campaign convinced many consumers that a basic tenet of capitalism—the notion that competition spurred companies to overachieve in order to survive—applied to Avis but not to Hertz, which could afford to relax its standards because of its stable lead in the rental car market. Although Hertz...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands