THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY

FALCUTY ENGLISH BUSINESS

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DISCUSSION
TOPIC : How can smaller companies compete with a dominant market
leader? Search for the keywords “ Avis: We try harder” to read about
how Avis took on a giant.

Member of group 3:
DO THUY TRANG - LEADER
LUU THI THANH MAI- SECRETARY
TRAN THI THOA
NGUYEN THI THUY
LE MAI ANH
TRAN VAN HUYNH
NGO THI HUE

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Trang: To face with the complicated and unpredictable of the Covid - 19 epidemic, today we
will hold an online company conference to ensure the safety of everyone. Thank you for
all coming. I am Trang, I’m a Business Development Manager of Avis car rental. As
you can see, we encountered many difficulties in the pandemic. Avis went from losing
$3.2 million. So, that is the reason why we’re here today in order to deal with the
problem “How can smaller companies compete with a dominant market leader”? If we
are all here, let’s get started. First of all, Let’s court detail about Avis. In the car rental
market in the US, Hertz was the leading brand for a long time and the Avis brand
entered the market as a follower. So, Avis decided to cooperate with advertising agency,
to come up with a new advertising campaign. The campaign is “ “We try harder” with
the slogan “We're number two”” . Has anyone heard about campaign “we try harder”
yet?
Mai: Yes. I have just research about Avis and campaign “We try harder”. Let’s me talk about
it.
Trang: OK, here you go.
Mai: In 1962, Avis was in search of a new advertising campaign. Since its inception, the car
rental company had trailed behind the market leader, Hertz. So Avis decided to
cooperate with Bill Bernbach of Doyle, Dane, Bernbach (BBD) - a famous advertising
agency, to come up with a new advertising campaign to bring its name out of the mud.
Then, Bernbach came back with his campaign: "We try harder" with the slogan “We're
number two, we try harder”
Trang: What are the characteristics of this campaign?
Mai: Hmm...The “We Try Harder” advertisement were an instant hit. Within a year, Avis went
from losing $3.2 million to earning $1.2 million - the first time it had been profitable in
more than a decade. From 1963 to 1966, as Hertz ignored the Avis campaign, the
market-share percentage gap between the two brands shrunk from 61–29 to 49–36.
Terrified Hertz executives projected that by 1968 Avis might need a new ad campaign-
because it would no longer be.
Anh: Thoa, with the tagline “we try harder”, can you tell me more about this Avis campaign?
Thoa: Ok. In this campaign, Avis is committed to always working to benefit customers. The
purpose is to provide customers with a car that is clean, smooth and ready to serve. In
fact, it sets clear standards for pre-delivery inspection, providing services during and
after receiving car returns from customers. These standards are disseminated to each
employee and thoroughly applied. One of the key players in this campaign was Bob
Townsend who deferred the campaign for months until the goal of ensuring customer
service and company operations stabilized. At each rental location, the plan is consistent
with thoughtful preparation such as reliable clean cars, friendly car rental agents ... The
big change for both the company and the car rental industry.

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Mai: So, Did Avis gain any chances by implementing this campaign?
Thoa: “We try harder” as a pattern and be strengthened continuously. Avis can introduce new
features and services easily because they always try to improve service to serve
customers.
Hue: As I know Hertz has been the leading brand in the US car rental market, how Avis took
on this giant?
Thoa: In the US car rental market, Hertz has been the leading brand for a long time. Avis is a
come-after brand with a very smart tagline “We try harder”. Avis has been very wise in
claiming they are number two in the market and have sympathy from potential
customers. In addition, aligning your brand with the number one brand in the industry is
a smart move. Positioning as the number two brand has brought a lot of benefits and
Avis' business has grown thanks to this campaign. It would have been nice if Avis was
able to finally supplant Hertz as the number one car rental company. I guess they have to
be content with having, in my opinion, one of the best and most memorable print ad
campaigns in history. That is not a bad legacy to have.
Trang: As you can see, we had a successful campaign and gained many growth opportunities
from this campaign in the past. However, before the instability from the current
epidemic, how can smaller companies compete with a dominant market leader? Do you
have any suggestions about this problem?
Thuy: In my opinion, innovation is one of the most effective ways that small businesses can
gain dominance in the market. Innovation is defined as "the development of new or
improvement of existing products, services or processes". It has the power to drive even
the smallest business to success.
Anh: Do you think that small companies always have to innovate to thrive?
Thuy: There is no doubt. Any business, no matter of being large or small, also need innovation.
Innovation will keep operations, products, and services fresh. Developing new ideas is
the fuel which will keep the business up to date. Adding this fuel will make the business
more competitive.
Anh: I quite agree with you. However, with limited resources, are it easier for small businesses
to innovate than big ones?
Thuy: Of course. Many people say that small businesses often inherently more innovative than
larger companies. Because there are fewer hurdles for a small business to jump over
when it comes to innovation. They can develop and implement new ideas quickly. They
don't have to spend too much time evaluating new ideas. Additionally, smaller company
can temporarily allocate all of their resources to a new idea.
Trang: That’s great ideal.

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Anh: I think one of the optimal ways for small firms can compete with a dominant market
leader is “ developing customer service”
Thuy: Why do you think that?
Anh: I had read an information that according to Salesforce, customer service refers to
the “support you offer your customers – both before and after they buy and use
your products and services – that helps them have an easy and enjoyable
experience with you.” For some, it may not always be easy to connect positive
customer experiences to organizational performance. As a result, it may be difficult
for some business leaders to justify expenditures on business functions that
improve the customer experience.
Thoa: Do you have any ideas for developing customer service?
Anh: If we want to develop customer service, you need to follow some rules in running
business:
1. The customer is always right
2. Make the customer fells valued and important
3. Be courteous and friendly at all times
4. Give customer what they need
5. Deal with problems quickly and efficiently
Trang: OK, I got it.
Mai: I agree with you. But can you give more details about making customer fells valued?
Anh: For instance : when your customer fells valued, they stay loyal to your business.
Loyal customers also help you get new customers by sharing your business to their
friends and co – worker. They do free word of mouth marketing for you and as a
result, your business grows. Therefore, you need to value your customers and make
them feel special. Now, I will give you some tips to do so: say thank you, ppay
attention to your customer, listen to feedback, be presentable: always be
presentable as a business. This means that your workspace and employees should
be clean, neat and professional.
Trang: Does anyone have any ideas to help small companies compete with larger markets?
Huynh: In this campaign of Avis, Avis is always committed to working to the end to bring
benefits to customers, customers are always in the center position, the aim is to bring
customers the best quality products. Let’s do the same. One thing that is different from
Avis is that they do not claim to be the number one company, but identify themselves as
the No.2 company. Take a company bigger than yourself to be a goal, striving to hope
that their company will be number 1 at some point in accordance with the "We try
harder" campaign. Let’s think about it. Then, this is a way that small business can
compete successfully with large business, it’s video marketing. With the amount of time
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 people spend on social media only going up. Studies show that video is the most
consumed type of content on social media – this is the type of content that will help
small companies gain the most attention. Because of this, your videos need to be sleek,
well-designed, and powerful.
Small companies can post their video marketing on Facebook as advertisements.
Huynh: It’s about two million small to medium sized businesses advertise on Facebook; it’s an
inexpensive and effective way to market to virtually any audience. Creating Facebook
ads is very easy. You just need a solid headline, a bit of descriptive copy, one image, and
a link. Facebook’s popularity has produced numerous 3rd party tools that can help you
succeed.
Hue: I think that all of the solutions you‘ve mentioned are very helpful, but as you know now
in Industry 4.0, the social media runs the world and we can take advantages of social
media. In developing an impressive social media strategy, I think we’ll have to do a few
things. What do you think about that?
Thuy: I totally agree with you but can you talk a little bit about the strategy?
Hue: Yes, of course. First, we have to look around – our competitors are competitors for a
reason, and they will often also be a huge source of inspiration. We will do everything
to be better than them.
We also have to think of how to emotionally appeal to our customers. Social media
means that we don’t necessarily have to have the fanciest looking pages – but we have
to understand what our customers like and then we will build our pages with trends to
attract our customers.
Huynh: So we should catch up with trends right? After that, what should we do?
Hue: Well, we can use video content to visually engage them. Facebook and Instagram are
where the majority of people consume video content so we can post some videos about
our cars with the models. I think if we follow these things, we can easily compete with
big businesses.
Trang: Before we close, let me just summarize the main points: The campaign "We try harder"
has shown the importance of determining a brand is. It is the reason why Avis
considered one of the 10 greatest brands of all time. And to overcome this tough time
cause of Covid-19, We need to innovation. Innovation will keep operations fresh, up to
date our business and make the business more competitive. Conquering market from
small market to common market. We must have a clear marketing strategies. Besides,
developing an impressive social media can approach amount of customers and the most
important is make customers feel satisfied. With these key methods, I assumed that our
company certainly finds the means by which to insert ourselves in the market, and earn a
portion of the market share and get through at hard time.

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 I’d like to thank you guys for coming to our meeting today.
Trang: Do anyone have any question? If everyone has no more questions, the meeting is closed.