Avis, the strength in admitting weakness
This is documented history rather than a laboratory result. The events are well recorded. What they teach is an argument, and the entry makes it openly.
In the early 1960s, the car rental company Avis was a distant second to the market leader, losing money, with no obvious way to compete. Instead of claiming to be the best, which nobody would have believed, they did the opposite. Their advertising openly admitted the truth: Avis is only number two in rent a cars, so why go with us? The answer they gave was that being second meant they had to try harder, could not afford dirty ashtrays or empty gas tanks or worn wipers, because they could not take customers for granted the way the leader could. The honesty was disarming. Rather than looking weak, admitting the weakness made everything else they said more believable, and it reframed their disadvantage as a reason to choose them. Avis began gaining ground and turned a profit, and the campaign became one of the most famous in advertising history.
Openly admitting a real weakness can build more trust than any claim of strength, because the admission signals honesty and makes everything else you say more believable. When everyone insists they are the best, the one who honestly names a limitation stands out as credible, and often turns the weakness into a reason to be chosen. This works in far more than advertising. In how you present yourself, your work, or your company, the instinct is to hide every flaw and claim only strengths, but a frank acknowledgment of a genuine limitation, paired with why you are still the right choice, is frequently more persuasive than a flawless pitch nobody quite trusts.
Charisma says a dozen learnable tactics get someone rated dramatically more competent, even for roles where charisma is irrelevant. Avis says openly admitting to being number two made the rest of the pitch believable and gained ground on the leader. Polish wins one and a confessed weakness wins the other. What separates them is what the audience is being asked to do. An evaluator rating a person reads the glow as competence and does not notice. A customer choosing between claims that all say best has stopped believing any of them, so the one that names a limit is the only one with a reason to be trusted. So when you are the one presenting, the admission works. When you are the one judging, the shine is telling you about your own reaction, and the entry that warns you about it is the first one.
Source: The Avis "We try harder" campaign, Doyle Dane Bernbach, 1962. Documented advertising history.
Robert Townsend, 1970
From the Avis chief executive who ran the We Try Harder campaign, on the decisions behind it and on running a company without the usual machinery.
Draw your own card. It does not take long, and it rewards taking your time.