who could help turn your problem into an opportunity?

A long, long time ago if clients had a perceived problem with their product and were struggling to sell it, they would turn to an advertising agency for the solution.

Said agency would then turn that problem into an opportunity. 

This is Dave Trott talking about how Bill Bernbach approached the brief to sell the Volkswagen Beetle -

'The problem for Volkswagen was that no one in America wanted a car like that. They didn’t even consider it a proper car – just a small, ugly toy car.

 Proper cars were from Detroit: huge and chrome and they changed style every year. So Bernbach turned a problem into an opportunity.

 
Because the VW was small that meant it used less petrol, and because it was small it was cheaper to buy, and because it didn’t keep changing it never went out of fashion, and because it was basic and rugged it worked in the snow, where big flashy cars didn’t.

 
He turned big flashy cars into cars for fat-cats, he turned VW into cars for smart people who weren’t interested in showing off.

 
That campaign ran on posters, TV, and print for 30 years.

Did changing a problem into an opportunity work? VW is now the biggest car brand in the world and those Detroit brands barely exist.'

And then he had to look at Avis rental cars -

'Hertz was far and away the biggest brand in rental cars, there were many smaller brands: Avis, Alamo, Dollar, Econ-O-Car, National.

So Avis were just one of Hertz’s many smaller competitors. Again, Bernbach turned that problem into an opportunity.

He positioned Avis as a smaller brand, “We’re only number 2, so why go with us?”He answered it with “We try harder, because we have to”.

He repositioned Hertz as fat-cats that take their customers for granted.

So the next time you have a bad experience at Hertz: lazy staff, long queues, wrong car, etc, come to Avis, we’ll appreciate you, you’re more important to us – We try harder.

That campaign ran for 10 years. Did changing a problem into an opportunity work?

Avis and Hertz are now joint number one in the rental car market, the other small brands disappeared.'

We all know that in the eyes of the great British public, the bus has many problems. So who are you turning to to help turn them into opportunities?