Case Study for Agency
03-1015015-978

Thrifty Car Rental

Imagine being a brand whose annual advertising budget is one-fifth the
size of the category leader, and every competitor between you and the
top is trying to outspend one another. That’s the situation we faced
four years ago when Thrifty Car Rental joined our agency.

Additionally,Thrifty competes in a low-interest category. For those
renting for either personal or business reasons, regardless of
discretionary income, car rental is a more rationally driven,
lower-involvement category where the price-value equation is far more
salient, as opposed to a high-involvement, emotionally driven category
that would encourage consumers to spend money on something because it
offers a different kind of emotional reward. Consumers are rather
ambivalent about their choice of car rental companies...they view all
of them as pretty much the same. Our advertising had to overcome these
rather substantial hurdles. Our low awareness, combined with the
low-interest category, meant that Thrifty was not even making the
consumer cut into an evoked-considered set of car rental companies. Our
challenge was to get Thrifty Car Rental into the evoked set, and
without a substantial budget. We knew that once people were exposed to
Thrifty’s value-conscious brand positioning, we had an excellent
opportunity to convert them from category leaders like Hertz and Avis.

Another major hurdle was the advertising budget. In a category of
spending giants, Thrifty’s voice could easily become lost or
overlooked. Our share of spending in 1998 was approximately 5 percent
of category spending, and that share has not increased in subsequent
years. Knowing that we could not match the spending of the category
giants, we had to look for creative ways to level the playing field so
that our message could be heard.

Not only did we need a message that would resonate in this low-interest
category, we needed to deliver it so efficiently and impactfully that
we looked like we were spending much more than we actually were. While
TV is the dominant medium for this category, we found that we could
deliver our message, and do it profitably by combining TV with a
strategic use of print and the Internet.

Appeal to the rational side of the customers’ mind-set by convincing
them that Thrifty is a better value because it has the same great cars
as the major competitors but with better rates, at the same time
appealing emotionally because we present Thrifty as a smart choice.

Executional elements:
:10 and :15 Television
Online media
Print
Collateral

Since our partnership with Thrifty was formed, Thrifty has enjoyed the
best years in the company’s history. Transaction volume and market
share have steadily increased since 1998. Even in the last two years,
2001 – 2002, two of the toughest years in history for the travel
industry, Thrifty has maintained a steady transaction and market share
growth; not a small accomplishment.

Thrifty has also been able to grow profits via Thrifty.com, their most
profitable distribution channel. Thrifty.com traffic was already 53%
higher for the first six months of 2003 over 2002. More importantly,
reservations are increasing as well, up over 24% after the first six
months of 2003 in a category that is flat.

The real insight was not trying to make car rental more than what it
truly is for the customer. Car rental is not the glamorous part of
travel; it provides a functional service for people in order to either
have a productive business trip or an enjoyable vacation. We knew that
this is why a Thrifty value-driven brand position would resonate so
well with potential customers; we just had to make sure they got to
know us. This rational appeal made the emotional connection with
consumers by making Thrifty a “smart” choice.

Smart, witty messages delivering the brand promise in :15 television
spots and print helped stretch the advertising dollars; but perhaps
even more important, we shifted significant portions of the media
budget to delivering the brand message online. Two factors were
particularly important in this shift.

1. The Internet has revolutionized the travel reservation process. More
and more people are using the Internet to plan travel and make
reservations online.
2. The Internet has contributed to leveling the playing field for all
car rental companies, which has helped elevate Thrifty into the
considered set when consumers are searching for car rentals, as it has
provided them with the opportunity to easily compare information across
the different competitors.

We recognized the opportunity for Thrifty to garner increased share by
investing heavily in online media and using it to place messages in
front of consumers as they were making their decisions. While Thrifty’s
total share of voice represents only 6 percent of category
expenditures, Thrifty’s online presence dominates the competition with
a 25 percent share of voice. This has helped drive business to
Thrifty.com and has played a significant role in increasing Thrifty Car
Rentals’ share of market.