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Enterprise Car Rental Ad Goes Into Action Movie Mode

Gerard Butler

Enterprise pulls out the stops in the war against ride-sharing

If the advertising and marketing segments of the car rental industry are any indication, things are about to go into ballistic mode. Feeling the pinch of the ride-sharing industry encroaching on the auto rental market, a few firms undoubtedly aren’t going to give any additional turf without a fight.

Enter Exhibit A, a recent series of video ads rolled out by Enterprise, the largest car rental company in the U.S. Two of them are already posted online, which features Scottish actor Gerald Butler as a slick, Bond-like character in a few sticky situations. The ad perhaps reminded many of James Bond’s treatment of rental cars.

One of them is evading a marauding herd of paparazzi, shooting camera flashes as if they were whizzing bullets as Butler scrambles down the streets towards the safety of an Enterprise franchise office which promptly offers him a handy rental escape vehicle.

The other one is even more hilarious and daring. Our hero is seen in the middle of a dive, using a handy smartphone app to call Enterprise for a waiting car. The outlet, which has a giant GPS screen that wouldn’t be out of place in most spy control centers, pinpoints the location of the vehicle to our plummeting protagonist. A yank of his parachute cord later, Butler makes a perfect landing in the driver’s seat ready to put pedal to metal in the next phase of his mission.

Production courtesy of creative agency The Corner, right down to the Bond-like incidental music and the screaming “Whatever the Mission” typography, is top-notch, presumably to reflect the high-tech elements that Enterprise is employing to upgrade its customer service.

“Enterprise uses the latest technologies coupled with its unique approach to customer service to make access to virtually any vehicle quick, convenient and immediate,” said Jim Stoeppler, Enterprise’s vice president of European brand marketing. The ‘Whatever the Mission’ series shows that our business is based on the needs of our customers – whatever the vehicle, whenever they need it and however long they need it for.”

The Corner production company came up with the high-octane scheme for the videos after extensive talks with Enterprise, which wanted to create a message that renting a vehicle was akin to customers embarking on a mission. That’s when the creative department decided to add some action sequences and a bit of humor to drive that message home.

The Enterprise campaign may also have been hinting towards its ride-sharing counterparts another more subtle but deeper message. One that tells them the car-rental market isn’t going to back down anytime soon.

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