EOC Week 1: VW Lemon

The word “Lemon” was used to describe the appearance of the car. They had also used the term “Think small” as a description for their advertising campaign. The campaign they had used made the sales for the VW bug sky rocket. Due to the way that they had advertised, they also changed the concept of advertising. They had pretty much just persuaded a bunch of people and in doing so they had convinced people that persuasion was just “thinking big..”
Sales for the VW Bug had become near impossible due to the fact that Volkswagens were made in Germany and Americans viewed Germany only as “Nazi Germany.”
The VW ads were created by Bill Bernbach’s ad agency in the late 50s. The quote that got me interested is the one Denis Brice had made:
“When a brand’s personality complements our own, we form a friendship with it and give it our trust and loyalty.”
It was a brand that was well developed. Herbie made this campaign even more popular.
German Engineering with a Jewish advertising company… 15 years after the war.


Sources

http://lifeincmyk.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/think-small-or-how-the-way-we-make-ads-was-changed-forever%E2%80%A6/
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1999/11/22/smallb7.html?page=all
http://www.brandstories.net/2012/11/03/vw-beetle-story-lesson-in-brand-persona-development/