NurseWeek

Avis ad campaign draws fire from nurses

By Michelle Paolucci
July 3, 2000


	You've read the article. Now tell us what you think. American Nurses Association Letter to Avis

Garden City, N.Y. Avis Rent A Car responded June 1 to American Nurses Association president Mary Foley’s appeal for the corporation to discontinue an ad that negatively portrays nurses, called "Mr. Williams Goes to the Doctor."

Although Avis chief executive officer A. Barry Rand did not agree to discontinue the ad in his letter to the ANA, he extended his apologies and stated that "Avis is listening to ANA’s comments and will take them into consideration as future executions of the campaign are developed."

The television commercial shows a woman who appears to be a nurse getting a patient’s name wrong, fumbling through a checklist of the patient’s medical history, and finally taking the patient to an examination room – already occupied.

Although the ad has stopped running, Avis would not confirm whether the ad will reappear in its fall campaign.

"The ad stopped running May 14, along with two others," said Greg Faulhaber, communications specialist for Avis. "We are in a competitive industry, so we are not going to say what we will or will not run in the fall."

Faulhaber reiterated what Rand said in his letter – that Avis would take the ANA’s concerns into consideration in future campaigns, and he apologized for any "misperceptions" that were caused by the ad.

Faulhaber said that the woman in the ad was mistaken for a nurse and shouldn’t have been. "The woman in the ad was intended to be a receptionist. The uniform was chosen very carefully so that she would not be mistaken for a nurse. In fact, the script reads ‘receptionist,’ " he said.

Faulhaber said he understands that nurses were upset by the ad and expressed that nurses’ feedback is important to Avis. "The perception is that she [the woman in the ad] is a nurse, and sometimes, unfortunately, perception is more important than reality. We are sorry that the ad caused that perception," he said. "The president of the car rental division’s mother is a nurse. We had no intention of insulting nurses," he said.

But many nurses are dissatisfied and are requesting that Avis make its apology public. Avis customer service is being flooded with e-mail from a group of nurses that is part of a listserve called VENOUS.

"We want Avis to pull the ad and replace it with one that apologizes publicly to our profession," said Assunta Vickers, RN, spokeswoman for VENOUS. "The canned response that so many of us [nurses] are receiving in your attempt at damage control is not going to cut it," she said in an e-mail to Avis.