Creativity Comes In All Sizes!

To connect the new road network of Germany, Adolf Hitler planned to mass produce simple small cars.

He gave the contract to Ferdinand Porsche in 1934.

It took 4 years for Porsche to design a small car that has two doors, four passenger seat, and a rear engine.

This car is popularly known as Volkswagen Beetle today.

But in the 1940’s and 1950’s, it was not so popular.

In fact, it was the least selling car.

After WW2, big muscle cars ruled the US car market.

And Beetle was a strange looking miniature automobile.

On top of that, it was looked down as a product of Nazi’s.

So why would anyone buy this tiny car manufactured in Nazi’s plant?

The advertising and marketing agency put a lot of efforts to sell this car.

They gave inch by inch detail and features of this car in the advertisements.

But everything was in vain.

They failed to persuade the people to buy this small car.

In 1959, Julian Koenig of ‘Doyle Dane Bernbach’ advertising agency partnered with Helmut Krone to create advertising campaigns for Beetle.

The print ads were simple.

It was filled with white space and a small image of Beetle was shown in a corner, with a title ‘Think Small’.

The ads were also honest.

It joked how the Beetle is not much of novelty anymore.

It made fun of its looks and its speed.

It briefed why owners of Beetle are not bothered anymore with problems pertaining to fuel, antifreeze, quality of tires, etc.

By making fun, they first drew the users interest.

Now they highlighted the advantages of having a small car —

Less parking space. Less driving space on road Low maintenance.

Low insurance.