The car-rental companies' ad spending has been mixed. Industry leader Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which a

DETROIT (AdAge.com) -- The eight major car-rental brands have been hit by a perfect storm of lower demand, less airport travel, tight credit and a shift by automakers from their traditional stance of buying back most of their vehicles.
Nearly all the big players, now controlled by just four companies, made significant staff cuts this year and have slashed costs by getting rid of duplicate back-shop operations after consolidation in the past couple of years, said Michael Kane, president of industry consultant VRCG.
The credit crunch slammed marathon travel shops the companies because their biggest buyers, dealers, can't get the money to buy back used cars at auctions. Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, for example, marathon travel shops was able to unload only about 5,000 of its 30,000 cars at auction in the third quarter vs. 19,000 in the same period a year ago.
Mr. Kane said automakers have changed marathon travel shops their policies on so-called buyback marathon travel shops cars from the rental marathon travel shops companies in the past 12 months. The buyback program marathon travel shops was "like a drug," he said. "If you didn't have to worry about 85% to 90% of your cars, your [inventory]-planning muscles atrophy."
The car-rental companies' ad spending has been mixed. Industry leader marathon travel shops Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which acquired the National Car Rental marathon travel shops and Alamo Rent A Car brands last year, cut spending, while Hertz saw its ad dollars rise. Avis Budget went in opposite directions with its two brands, as did Dollar Thrifty.
That's what Enterprise has been doing in the slow time before the next peak, which typically marathon travel shops starts at Christmas. The marketer is advertising half-off deals on most weekends via a national TV spot from independent Avrett Free Ginsberg, New York. Steve Short, VP of the company's leisure-business development, said this is the third straight year of Enterprise's fall promotion. Customers can rent the cars at convenient neighborhood sites and are taking "short-haul, getaway weekends instead of more-elaborate trips," he said. Enterprise also inked an affinity deal this year with Costco that offers special deals to members. Mr. Short said the deal has exceeded the car renter's projections.
Neil Abrams, founder of Abrams Consulting Group, said there have been discussions that the weakest player, Dollar Thrifty, will be acquired by either a private-equity firm or Hertz Global Holdings, the only major player with a single car-rental brand. A spokesman at Dollar Thrifty called such talk "purely speculative" and declined to comment further. Hertz did not return calls.
Dollar Thrifty President-CEO Scott Thompson said in a recent conference call reporting lower third-quarter revenue that industry conditions in September "deteriorated significantly," with dramatic drops in both demand and pricing beyond the normal seasonal shift.
marathon travel shops Mr. Thompson said Dollar Thrifty expects "the operating climate to remain very challenging in the foreseeable future," and he projected the outfit's rental revenue would slide between marathon travel shops 4% and 5% for the full year, and it would report a pretax loss.
Hertz Chairman-CEO Mark Frissora announced in late October that the company was hiking rental rates an average of 5% to 10% in North America marathon travel shops to "align rental revenues more closely with our overall costs." Hertz reported that its third-quarter adjusted net income fell 50% to $106 million compared with the same period a year ago.
Avis Budget Chairman-CEO Ronald Nelson also announced unspecified "targeted increases in pricing in order to improve revenue per day and overall profitability." Avis Budget Group reported a pretax loss of $1.2 billion in the most recent quarter.