Philippos_Philippou_ThinkSmall

“Think Small” campaign
The No. 1 campaign of the 20th century
3/28/2014
University of Bath
Philippos Philippou
MN 50416

March 28, 2014
University of Bath | 1
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................2
2. HISTORY ..........................................................................................................................................2
3. BUSINESS PLAN – THE CHALLENGE.................................................................................................3
4. MARKETING STRATEGY...................................................................................................................4
4.1 “Think small”...........................................................................................................................4
4.2 Campaign design - innovation and radicalness.......................................................................4
5. NEXT STEPS ...................................................................................................................................10
6. COMMERCIALISATION IMPACT – POTENTIAL – BENEFITS............................................................10
7. CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................11
8. REFERENCES..................................................................................................................................12
FIGURES
Figure 1: 1950 Hudson Custom ad..........................................................................................................5
Figure 2: Chevrolet, Mercury and Cadillac ads in 1950 ..........................................................................6
Figure 3: Volkswagen Beetle first ad.......................................................................................................7
Figure 4: Beetle's ad, below text.............................................................................................................8
Figure 5: "Lemon ad" ..............................................................................................................................9

March 28, 2014
University of Bath | INTRODUCTION 2
1. INTRODUCTION
The process of proposing a brand-new product or service into the market
called commercialisation. For successful commercialisation process, a
combination of innovation and targeting the need in the market is crucial. In
other words, in order to convert an innovative idea into a business opportunity
you have to identify if there is a place in the market for your product before
moving to commercialisation. However according to Gourvile, (2006)
sometimes the commercialisation process falls due to several reasons. First of
all, usually most customers are reluctant to adopt their behaviour to a new
product or technology and they also, tend to evaluate new products relative to
products they already use to do a job. More importantly, sometimes
businesses have a tendency to overestimate the potential benefits of their
novel products. Those are the most important reasons why sometimes a
commercialisation process fails.
Throughout history many products became famous due to their highly
successful commercialisation process. One of those products was
Volkswagen beetle. Volkswagen, managed to create an amazing business
plan and a really impressive marketing strategy for this particular car in order
to enter into an entirely new market for them.
2. HISTORY
The Volkswagen beetle first produced in 1936 and it was known as the
peoples’ car. Beetle was Adolf Hitler’s idea, as he particularly wanted to mass-
produce a car which everyone could buy. Very recently beetle became a really
famous car. With only 3 years in production, beetle’s factory became the
largest motor factory in Europe capable of producing 150,000 cars per year,
and then by 1942 the production rose to 1.5 million cars per year
(Volkswest.co.uk, n.d.). Beetle had dominated the European and African
market amazingly fast. By the end of 1950, Volkswagen decided to do a
controversial move. They decided to enter the USA market. Why
controversial? Beetle wasn’t just a simple foreign car. Everyone knew beetle
as a car which developed by Hitler, a Nazi car (Johnson, 2014). Although,
beetle became surprisingly successful car in USA and the reason was its
impressive commercialisation strategy.

March 28, 2014
University of Bath | BUSINESS PLAN – THE CHALLENGE 3
3. BUSINESS PLAN – THE CHALLENGE
Before Volkswagen decided to introduce the beetle into USA market they had
built an exceptional and risky at the same time, business plan. To structure
their plan they used a similar framework as the NABC (needs, approach,
benefits, competition). As a first stage, they identified who were the
customers, what they were looking for and how big was the market. They
observed that the automotive industry was really huge and the cars, back to
those years, had generally the same specifications and style. They found that
big cars were the norm (Fowler, 2011). As for the customers, they needed the
cars to be fast, big and stylish. They also identified that it was hardly to find
cars in the market with the same specifications as beetle had. The reason was
simple. No one wanted a small car in USA and especially a car produced by
Nazis. The decision to enter into a USA market contained a number of risks
which Volkswagen had to deal with it.
As second stage, they examined the competition manufacturers. The two
main automotive manufacturers were Cadillac and General Motors. Both
manufactures primary market was USA and they were specialising to produce
luxury and fast cars. On the other hand, beetle was small, slow and somehow
ugly (Johnson, 2014)! It was exactly the opposite. Undoubtedly, enter a
market with those specific features contained considerable risks. The major
risk was that, everyone was driving a big fast car and almost no one wanted to
drive a small ugly and slow car. However, due to this risk Volkswagen
identified that in USA very few people knew the benefits to owe a small car.
This small but essential detail would play significant role in the subsequence
beetle’s course. Therefore, they should found an alternative approach in order
to target the appropriate audience. At the beginning they decided to focus on
individuals and especially paterfamilias, presenting to them the car’s benefits
in comparison with its competitors. They selected to present the car as the
safest and most advanced car, in terms of the engine, in order to attract them.
How they did it? With fantastic marketing strategy. They designed a series of
amazing advertisements (ads) which eventually changed the history of
advertisement (ad).

March 28, 2014
University of Bath | MARKETING STRATEGY 4
4. MARKETING STRATEGY
Throughout the years, Volkswagen managed to build a strong brand name in
Europe. Although the high fame that they had in Europe, in USA Volkswagen
was almost unknown. In addition, the WWII had just finished, and as everyone
know USA fight against Germans during the war. As is understood, under
those circumstances, to enter a car to USA market was too risky. In addition,
the thing that aggravated the situation more was that beetle was a car whose
development was tied to Adolf Hitler himself. In other words, was a Nazis’ car.
Having this in mind, Volkswagen had to find a way to promote the car
successfully. And they did it!
4.1 “Think small”
The Volkswagen knew that they should found an alternative and innovative
way to promote the car to the potential customers. The way they chose, was
to advertise the beetle with a totally novel way. In order to do that, they
collaborated with Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) agency. Thus, the DDB team
built a print campaign in 1959 that highlighted beetle’s benefits against its
competitors. The campaign mainly focused on beetle’s frame, which was
smaller than most of the cars been sold at the time (Kabourek, 2014). They
designed ads that included a small image of beetle with a lot of whitespace
around it. With this way, they wanted to show the contradiction with the
existing traditional cars which were mainly associated with luxury. Their
principal objective was to attract the attention to beetle, by converting the
smallness of beetle into strength instead of a weakness (Fowler, 2011). As for
the name of the campaign, should had been a name that reflected beetle
design and at the same time been attractive. DDB teams came up with the
“Think small” as a name/slogan. They tried to find a name which was meant to
emphasise beetle simplicity and minimalism in order to shift people’s
perspective of small cars.
4.2 Campaign design - innovation and radicalness
The biggest question is how they managed to promote so successful a funny
looking car, known for being slow and manufactured in factories built by Nazis,
without the help of current technology (Johnson, 2014). The answer lies on
innovation. Each product has his unique lifecycle and different types of
innovation give profitability at different point in the life cycle (Moore, 2004, pp.

March 28, 2014
86--92). As the beetle was at marketing point, they came up with brilliant and
innovative marketing strategy, which eventually led beetle’s sales to
unpredictable numbers. Particularly, Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) team and
Volkswagen decided to completely destroy the status quo for automobile ads
with the “Think Small” campaign (Johnson, 2014).
As mentioned above, during 50s in USA, big cars were associated with speed
and luxury. People use to feel the cars as fashion statements and
testosterone boosters and nor as just a way to get the kids to school. While
USA consumers, literally, they were being urged to “think big”, the “think
small” ad came and urged the consumers to think the opposite
(thinkingouttabox, 2009). American cars’ ads were moving along the same
lines, designed with visually bright colours, big headlines and large logos. On
the other hand, beetle’s ad had lots of white space, the car was tiny, the
headline was inadequate in terms of information and worse of all… it was in
black and white! (Life in CMYK, 2011)
Figure 1: 1950 Hudson Custom ad
Source: http://www.plan59.com/cars/cars390.htm

March 28, 2014
As can be seen from figure 1, the ordinary ads were visually colourful in order
to attract the reader. You couldn’t just slide over them as their hand-lettered
headlines attracted your eyesight.
By observing more different car ads, figure 2, we could see that in order to
advertise a car during 50s, they used a variety of techniques to attract
potential customers. They introduced for example, beautiful girls with colourful
and attractive gowns, provided magnificent landscapes and attractive models
along with jewels. In addition, each automobile ad had a slogan which
generally had the same meaning for all of them. For example, slogans like:
“You’ve got to drive it to believe it!”, “Filled with grace and great new things”
and “You can make your ‘someday’ come true now”, had the same main
Figure 2: Chevrolet, Mercury and Cadillac ads in 1950
Source: http://galleryhip.com/1950s-car-advertisements.html

March 28, 2014
words like: “New, Shiny, Big and Great Features!” (Life in CMYK, 2011). An
article in thinkingouttabox (2009) mentioning accurately that: “The inherent
message sent out was: “This is the American Dream, Live it!”
Unlike with the trend of those times, Beetle ad had a simple consept. Just a
small picture of the car with the headline "Think small". At the bottom, there
was a text listed the advantages of driving a small car versus a big car
(Kabourek, 2014).
Figure 3 illustrates the first two ads of Volkswagen beetle in USA. Unlike other
cars’ ads which mainly focused on providing as much information as possible
to the reader, beetle’s ads were breathtakingly simple (Odgen, 2014). Then,
how did they manage to attract the consumers? The answer is brilliant from a
marketing perspective. They forced reader’s eyes to focus on the car using an
empty white background trick. With this way, they wanted from reader to see
the car from the designers view and not as an ugly different car in a sea of
American beauties. They aimed to show beetle uniqueness in terms of design
and style. Literally, they wanted to confuse the reader. “If you woke up to find
this ad in your newspaper in the 1960s, you were thoroughly confused and
just had to read it. At this point, they’ve already won”, Johnson (2014) said.
Figure 3: Volkswagen Beetle first ad.
Source: http://0-six-5-eight.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/pink-gk-jersey.html

March 28, 2014
Nevertheless, beetle’s ad still seemed to lags behind other ads. However, the
biggest secret of ad success was into the text at the bottom of the poster.
Figure 4: Beetle's ad, below text
As you read on figure 4, a part of text was:
“So you can easily break almost any speed low in the country in a VW. And
you can also cruise right past gas stations, repair shops and tire stores. The
VW engine may not be the fastest, but it’s among the most advanced.” As we
can observe, they are extremely honest and at one point it seems they insult
their product. What’s the point behind that? They use the logical fallacy
situation trick. They created the “ideal” car and then they tell you that beetle
wasn’t anything like it. At the end, by using the “straw man” argument, they tell
you how this is a good thing. The beetle is slow, so it implies it doesn’t burn
much fuel, it breaks easily and doesn’t need frequent repairs. Actually it
sounds nice and reliable. It’s not fast so it’s safe. It’s suitable for everyday use.
Beetle’s ads were reality based, and somehow were connected with
consumers on an emotional level as they were conveyed car’s advantages in
a way that consumers could fully understand. For instance, apart from “Think
small”, DDB team used slogans like: “Live below your means”, “Impossible”
and “most engines still aren’t in back?” which, in conjunction with smart
pictures, were highlighting car’s unique specifications in each poster.

March 28, 2014
One of the most stunning posters illustrated below.
In this ad depicted a back and white picture of Beetle with the word “Lemon” in
bold font. At the bottom the text starts: “This Volkswagen missed the boat. The
chrome strip on the glove compartment is blemished, and must be replaced”.
As the text goes on, describes the beetle inspection process. At some point in
the text, mentioned that there are more inspectors in Volkswagen factory than
cars. Continuing, it reports that each car runs through 189 check points, and
one beetle out of fifty rejected. At the end it says: “This preoccupation with
detail means the VW lasts longer and requires less maintenance, by and
large, than other cars” and concluding with the astonishing phrase “We pluck
the lemons; you get the plums.” The way the composed the text it’s amazing.
The reader’s first impression is to questioning why Volkswagen calling their
own car a lemon. Automatically reader becomes curious and wants to read
further to see eventually that it is about the strict inspection process that
beetle goes through (Coleman, 2009).
Figure 5: "Lemon” ad

March 28, 2014
University of Bath | NEXT STEPS 10
In addition, except the radical and innovative ads Volkswagen proceeded to
another innovative movement. They changed their own name for the sake of
better promotion. Beetle is usually referred as “VW” instead of a Volkswagen.
Volkswagen doesn’t sounds American. On the other hand, VW is cool, fresh,
simple and friendly (Johnson, 2014).
5. NEXT STEPS
After beetle’s ad success, on 1965, DDB team and Volkswagen decided to
advertise the car on television. And guess what? The Beetle ad campaign
stood out for its use of television. The beetle commercial highlighted the
emotional relationship between car and consumer. The content was quite
pioneering. The commercial presented a funeral procession as the voice of
the deceased bequeaths his fortune. He decided to leaves nothing to his wife
and sons and especially to business partners who were wasteful with money.
But to the tearful young man in a VW Beetle at the end of line, he says: "To
my nephew, Harold, who of times said `A penny saved is a penny earned ...
and it sure pays to own a Volkswagen' ... I leave my entire fortune of one
hundred billion dollars", (Heath, 2012). They literally planted beetle in
consumers’ head without even realizing it!
6. COMMERCIALISATION IMPACT – POTENTIAL – BENEFITS
Beetle campaign had immediate impact on car’s sales. Volkswagen sales rose
by 25% two years after campaign lunched. When beetle firstly appeared on
USA market was playing as an underdog, but eventually Volkswagen outsold
the other car dealers such as Cadillac and General Motors. Particularly,
Volkswagen sold one million Beetles in 1963, up over the 150,601 sold in
1958, one year before the “Think Small” campaign (Prell, 2011). Furthermore,
many young consumers became attracted to the beetle due to DDB and
Volkswagen commercial emotional approach. This approach was more
talkative to consumers and made Volkswagen to seem more like a person
than a company. Volkswagen managed to build an automotive manufacturing
empire through their culture turn. The most incredible thing that BBD team
managed do is to get people talking for the beetle.
In addition, Volkswagen, through beetle ads, managed to build their unique
brand personality in a crowded marketplace. After ads launched, everyone

March 28, 2014
University of Bath | CONCLUSION 11
could recognise the beetle in the streets. In other words, due to this campaign
Volkswagen built a lifetime of brand loyalty and became a household brand
and a global icon (Odgen, 2014).
The Volkswagen beetle campaign did much more than boosts sales. It was
ranked as the best advertising campaign of the twentieth century by Ad Age.
“The campaign has been considered so successful and the work of the ad
agency behind it, changed the very nature of advertising—from the way it's
created to what you see as a consumer today", Odgen said. After beetle
successful slogans, many ads introduced similar trick, with more recent
slogans including "Drivers Wanted" and "Das Auto" (Fowler, 2011).
Eventually, DDB team changed the way we make ads… (Life in CMYK, 2011)
7. CONCLUSION
DDB and Volkswagen managed to meet the challenge of selling Nazi car in a
Jewish town (Kattan, 2014). They sold a strange-looking car to Americans, at
the time when USA market consisted only of big and luxury cars (Kabourek,
2014). With brilliant written ads, the campaign generated huge publicity which
transformed to extremely high beetle sales (Life in CMYK, 2011).
Of course, in order to meet this particular challenge apart from the ads,
Volkswagen firstly built an amazing business plan which followed precisely
throughout the years. They identified the US consumer needs, and they
approached the new marketplace opportunity with an exceptional plan. They
knew beetle advantages against its competitors and the managed to emerge
them through their marketing strategy. Furthermore, Volkswagen handled ably
any risk which emerged during the whole process.
VW announced the end of beetle’s production in June 2003, due to reduced
demand. The VW sold 21,529,464 Beetle from 1938 until 2003 (Wikipedia,
n.d.), which is a really huge number for a car.
Thinking Small is the remarkable idea. Due to this idea Volkswagen competed
equally with the USA automotive giants, and managed to survive with just a
simple concept. Beetle wasn’t just a car, it became a symbol of individuality
and personal mobility, and even today it is one of the most recognizable cars
in the world. Hiott (2012) aptly stated: “Sometimes achieving big things
requires the ability to think small…”

March 28, 2014
University of Bath | REFERENCES 12
8. REFERENCES
Coleman, R. 2009. Writing for Designers › Lemon. [online] Available at:
http://www.writingfordesigners.com/?p=1731 [Accessed: 27 Mar 2014].
Fowler, J. 2011. Hugely successful ad campaigns - Think Small. [online]
Available at: http://money.ca.msn.com/savings-
debt/gallery/investopedia/hugely-successful-ad-campaigns?page=6
[Accessed: 25 Mar 2014].
Garfield, B. 1999. Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns.
[online] Available at: http://adage.com/article/special-report-the-
advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-
campaigns/140918/ [Accessed: 25 Mar 2014].
Gourville, J. T. 2006. Eager Sellers and Stony Buyers: Understanding the
Psychology of New-Product Adoption. [online] Available at:
http://hbr.org/product/eager-sellers-and-stony-buyers-understanding-the-
psychology-of-new-product-adoption/an/R0606F-PDF-ENG [Accessed:
26 Mar 2014].
Heath, R. 2012. Seducing the subconscious. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-
Blackwell.
Hiott, A. 2012. Thinking small. New York: Ballantine Books.
Johnson, J. 2014. The Greatest Print Campaigns of All Time: Volkswagen
Think Small | Design Shack. [online] Available at:
http://designshack.net/articles/graphics/the-greatest-print-campaigns-of-
all-time-volkswagen-think-small/ [Accessed: 25 Mar 2014].
Kabourek, S. 2014. Game-changing ads - "Think Small" - 1962 (1) -
FORTUNE. [online] Available at:
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0908/gallery.iconic_ads.fortu

March 28, 2014
University of Bath | REFERENCES 13
ne/index.html [Accessed: 25 Mar 2014].
Kattan, O. 2014. The VW Beetle Story: A Lesson in Brand Persona
Development - Brand Stories - New Age Brand Building. [online] Available
at: http://www.brandstories.net/2012/11/03/vw-beetle-story-lesson-in-
brand-persona-development/ [Accessed: 26 Mar 2014].
Life in CMYK. 2011. Think Small or how the way we make ads was changed
forever…. [online] Available at:
http://lifeincmyk.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/think-small-or-how-the-way-
we-make-ads-was-changed-forever%E2%80%A6/ [Accessed: 26 Mar
2014].
Moore, G. A. 2004. Darwin and the demon: innovating within established
enterprises. Harvard Business Review, 82 (7/8), pp. 86--92.
Odgen, M. 2014. Top ad campaign of century? VW Beetle, of course -
Portland Business Journal. [online] Available at:
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/1999/11/15/smallb4.html
Prell, M. J. 2011. Underdogma. Dallas, Tex.: BenBella Books.
thinkingouttabox. 2009. Volkswagen "Think Small!" Ads. [online] Available at:
http://thinkingouttabox.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/volkswagen-ads/
Volkswest.co.uk. n.d. History of the VW Beetle in full. [online] Available at:
http://www.volkswest.co.uk/beetle_history.html [Accessed: 26 Mar 2014].
Wikipedia. n.d. Volkswagen Beetle. [online] Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle [Accessed: 28 Mar 2014].

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