Guest Blog #32 – Anand C
The piece, “What should you do if you are #2?” which I got to from Marketing Playbook, got me thinking…
As Laura Ries says in this post, Avis is one of the most memorable #2 campaigns (some other examples are also listed), focussing on why they are different from Hertz. This ad, created by Bill Bernbach is indicative of the theme of the campaign that converts disadvantages to advantages:
Of course, positioning runs deep in Laura’s blood. Her father, Al Ries (literally) wrote the book on “Positioning”, in addition to several follow up (and not as interesting) books.
Her post has a lot of lessons for the harris jeyarajes, the bharardwajes, vidyasagars and Raja family’s second generation (and the other umpteen upcoming tune-makers). Instead of trying to be AR Rahman clones (the undisputable #1) that seems to be the way to go, it makes a lot of sense to differentiate from the #1 as much as possible – like focus more on melody and less on percussion, put out pieces inspired by village and folk music, more lyrics-inspired music, more situational tunes, etc.
In a way, this is a painfully long restatement of Guru’s simple plea earlier… there is no strong #2, and there seems to be scope for an Avis.