EOC Week 1: VW Lemon

The VW Lemon ad has impacted the advertising world ever since it first came to America. Doyle Dane Bernbach introduced the Beetle with the ad that seemed effortless, that possessed a revolutionary approach to marketing. It connected with consumers, successfully integrating European small design into a culture with a big lifestyle. This ad, along with others from the campaign, was the first to represent a perfect balance of image, copy and simplicity, setting a benchmark that has inspired advertisers to do better ever since. http://www.writingfordesigners.com/?p=1731 People loved that a company was willing to kid itself in public, and no one responded more to the Beetle or its advertising than America's vaunted "baby boomers." As these children of postwar affluence came of age in the 1960s, they embraced Volkswagens as a way to show rejection of what they saw as the materialism of older generations. Besides, Volkswagens were cheap to buy and run, and they were easily fixed. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1960-1969-volkswagen-beetle4.htm

Ad agencies began imitating the DDB approach to ad making, it became a movement that industry professionals now refer to as the creative revolution, it was in this period when creativity mattered the most. The movement of the beetle continued across the land, and a threat was on the horizon, though Volkswagen increased sales throughout the 1960s to remain America's top-selling foreign make, its share of the import-car market withered from 67 percent in 1965 to a less commanding 51 percent by decade's end. It was DDB that pioneered the concept of art directors and copywriters working together.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1999/11/22/smallb7.html?page=all The lemon ad will go down in history, and we will always go back to realize how much of an impact it has made.