If the Sainsbury’s ad campaign was one of the best in British advertising history, then VW’s Beetle advertising is the US equivalent.

It’s not exaggerating to say it’s one of the best print ad campaigns of all time.

In fact, the whole campaign, including this 1959 Think Small launch ad were voted the No. 1 campaign of all time in Advertising Age's 1999 The Century of Advertising.

It changed the direction of advertising creativity and established the VW Beetle as perhaps the most recognisable car in the world.

It certainly made it the best-selling car in the world.

Annual sales increased from 52,221 in 1958 to 342,790 in 1973, and only started to tail off when the new VW Golf was launched that year.

Driven by this demand created by DDB, total Beetle production reached 15 million in 1972, to beat the Ford Model T as the most successful car in history. By 1992 it had soared to 21 million, with the final figure reaching 21,529,464 when production stopped for good in Mexico in 2003.

Not bad for a small, ugly, slow, air-cooled car from Germany with a Nazi pedigree.

Hello, DDB

It was Manhattan-based ad agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) who launched the Think Small campaign which won over Americans in the 50’s and 60’s.

In 1955, VW had sold over a million Beetles around the world, but had only shifted 9,000 in the United States. So they opened their first Volkswagen of America sales arm in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to try and break the US market.

But their little car was up against a juggernaut – the American automotive industry. That year, Americans bought over 8 million cars, the vast majority produced by Ford, GM and Chrysler.

Big budgets

These big sales came from big budgets. In 1956, Chevrolet alone was spending $30.4 million on advertising, with Ford following at $25 million. Head of Volkswagen of America, Carl Hahn, decided to find a US ad agency to create a new campaign to boost sales in the States.

He visited agencies on Madison Avenue in New York but was disappointed with what they presented. The agencies had done plenty of spec work showing illustrations of the Beetle on a beautiful driveway with a nice, shiny family gazing admiringly at it. Just like other cars ads. But he wanted something different.

Honesty

Hahn ended up at the offices of DDB and got a pitch from agency head, Bill Bernbach. DDB hadn’t done any mock-ups, drawings or concepts for the ads they would run. He simply said that he didn’t know the product very well, but would take Hahn through DDB’s portfolio of past work.

DDB were famous for seeking out clients with small budgets, and creating smart, witty, intelligent campaigns that punched above their weight. This was the complete opposite to the brash, in-your-face advertising that most other agencies were producing at the time.

Hahn was impressed by Bernbach’s honesty and felt he had found the agency who could handle the account. The contracts were signed and VW gave DDB the budget. Just $600,000.

The Think Small launch ad

American cars in those days were big and vulgar, covered in fins and chrome and powered by massive gas-guzzling lumps. The advertising usually reflected this.

Volkswagens were nothing like that, which might have been seen as a disadvantage. But DDB art director Helmut Krone saw this as an advantage. The genius of the campaign was in focusing on these perceived disadvantages and making them benefits – all with a massive dose of humour.

From the beginning, DDB’s campaign didn’t use a fake, perfect family in luxurious surroundings like other car ads.

The VW Think Small launch ad used a stark, unretouched photo, not a fancy illustration like every other ad. It showed a dark-coloured Beetle against a plain background, so that the focus was on the car itself. It was placed in the upper left corner, on a slight angle and in an ocean of white space.

Widows and orphans

The headline and body copy were set in a sans-serif typeface, Futura. Most copy up until then had been set in serif typefaces. Widows and orphans were everywhere, to create almost a homemade, natural, more trustworthy look.

The quirky typesetting was complemented by the simple, brutally honest, benefit-led copywriting. This included a full stop at the end of the headline, which forced the reader to stop and think about what they had just read.

Then there’s the Volkswagen logo, crammed in awkwardly between the second and third columns. (Helmut Krone didn’t like putting logos in ads.) Putting the VW logo where the reader didn’t expect to see it again showed that this ad was different, like the car.

And there’s not even a slogan or pay-off line. It’s all about challenging conventions.

Black and white

The entire ad was printed in black and white, mainly because Volkswagen didn’t have enough budget to print it in colour. This created a striking effect next to all the other full colour pages in Life Magazine, where it first appeared.

(In fact, research carried out by the Starch Company showed that Volkswagen ads had higher reader scores than editorial pieces in many publications.)

Everything about the ad says honesty and simplicity. It became an almost instant hit. Office workers talked about it around the water cooler. Teenagers pinned it to their walls. It became more than just another ad.

Most important of all, sales figures backed up the DDB approach. VW soon achieved enormous success in the United States, rivalling giants such as Chevrolet, Ford and Rolls-Royce.

Why the ad was significant

The VW Think Small ad and the rest of the campaign marked a seismic shift in advertising and the beginning of the Creative Revolution. For the first time, honesty was the selling point. The copy didn’t talk down to anyone, and the consumer was trusted to be smart enough to work things out. Here was an ad that spoke to people’s intelligence in a way that the glossy, style-based campaigns didn’t.

The influence of DDB’s VW advertising can still be seen. Establishing a tone of voice and building a trustworthy brand are paramount. In fact, the ads and the unique tone the DDB team created wouldn’t look out of place today. This is why people like Bill Bernbach, art director Helmut Krone and copywriter Julian Koenig are seen as pioneers of the Creative Revolution.

Good selling

They showed that ad agencies could sell products in a more creative way. They didn’t have to use the textbook approach of glossy illustrations, and fake, perfect families in idealised settings. Bill Bernbach's belief that “good taste, good art and good writing” could also mean good selling was proved to be true.

In short, the VW campaign did much more than just boost sales and build a lifetime of brand loyalty. The ads, and the agency behind them, changed the very nature of advertising.

Quick note. I’ve also included ads for the VW camper van here, because I love them.