By the early 1960s, Avis Rent a Car had a long-running problem. It was a distant second to Hertz, the clear leader in the industry, and it hadn’t made a profit in more than a decade. In the year before its turnaround, it lost about $3.2 million.

Most companies in that position try to look bigger than they are. They talk about being a leader, show off their size and hope customers don’t notice the gap. Avis went the other way. In 1962, working with the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, it launched a campaign built around the one fact it would normally want to hide.

The headline read: “Avis is only No. 2 in rent a cars. So why go with us?” The answer, in plain language, was that being second meant Avis had to work harder for every customer. Clean ashtrays. Full gas tanks. Cars that worked. Shorter lines. The campaign’s line, “When you’re only No. 2, you try harder,” became one of the best-known slogans in American advertising, shortened over time to simply “We try harder.”

The ads worked because they were believable. Customers already knew Avis wasn’t the biggest. Admitting it out loud made the promise to try harder sound honest instead of like empty bragging. Within about a year, Avis went from losing $3.2 million to earning $1.2 million, its first profit in over a decade. Over the next few years, it took a large bite out of Hertz’s lead.

The campaign also only worked because the company backed it up. A promise to try harder falls apart quickly if the cars are dirty and the lines are long. Avis had to deliver on what its ads said, and that commitment became part of how the company ran.