1969 volkswagen beetle

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When Ugliness Was a Volkswagen Virtue
1969 Volkswagen Beetle
1969 Volkswagen Beetle, Before And After Mishap

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Novaload
07/18/09

In reply to When Ugliness Was a Volkswagen Virtue
VW's campaigns were brilliant examples of winning by telling the unvarnished truth about your product--which flew in the face of almost every other product and certainly every bit of received wisdom about fluffing and pitching a product. Add a little humor and you have also made your product hip and likable. You'll never beat the big 3 but you will have great success and become both an icon and an advertising legend. Amazing stuff.
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kitko
07/18/09

In reply to When Ugliness Was a Volkswagen Virtue
If you look carefully, there's a Mercedes star on that antena.
Anyway, VW design today combines the "greatness" of being vague, naive and sterile. Audi follows the suit.
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DrLemming
07/18/09

In reply to When Ugliness Was a Volkswagen Virtue
Those were wonderful ads. Yes, DDB was top notch, but the real key was VW. It was committed to being different. Not just a little different around the edges -- VW pretty much did everything the opposite of the Big Three in flagrant fashion for decades.

What's most lacking in today's auto industry is iconoclasm. There aren't enough automakers that are willing to take the kinds of risks that VW did back in the day. The result: You may have a record number of choices in a given vehicle class but very little meaningful differences.

Any of the automakers that are on the verge of disappearing from the US market could revive themselves if they took a page from VW. Alas, it won't happen. Group think is too strong in today's auto industry.
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Van Sarockin, rogue trebuchet
07/18/09

In reply to When Ugliness Was a Volkswagen Virtue
Doyle Dane Bernbach's ads for VW set a new standard for spare, humorous, catchy and visually distinct advertising. People are still mining and trying to outdo those ads. After all, when life gives you lemons...
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Paul Y. don't drive too fast.
07/18/09

@Van Sarockin, rogue trebuchet: When life give you lemons, it means you're probably driving a Volkswagen?
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underwear-ninja
07/18/09

@Van Sarockin, rogue trebuchet:

race them!
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