Patrick BiddiscombeNew Breed · Founder & CEO of New Breed | HubSpot-Led Growth | Advisor to HubSpot & FinQore

This “Small” Ad Changed The Car Industry In A Huge Way

Name: This “Small” Ad Changed The Car Industry In A Huge Way
Uploaded: 2022-04-09T13:00:02+00:00
Duration: 47 s
Channel: Patrick Biddiscombe
Description: A short spoken summary describing how Volkswagen’s 1959 “Think Small” advertising campaign (by agency Doyle, Dane & Bernbach) changed car-industry…

9 Apr 2022 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:47

A short spoken summary describing how Volkswagen’s 1959 “Think Small” advertising campaign (by agency Doyle, Dane & Bernbach) changed car-industry marketing by promoting minimalism, honesty, and dependability. The piece explains the campaign’s strategy—embracing smallness and deliberate weaknesses (e.g., slowness) to position the cars as smart and dependable—and notes its cultural shift away from exaggerated sales pitches toward consumer-skeptic-aware advertising.

Questions this video answers

1959.

Doyle, Dane and Bernbach.

"Think Small".

Chapters

Did you know this ad changed marketing in the car industry. In 1959, Volkswagen and AD agency Doyle, Dane and Bernbock revolutionized how corporations speak to consumers. They changed the game with their Think Small campaign. During a time where there was a growing hatred toward the mass consumerism of the 1950s, Volkswagen focused on the minimalism of its smaller, more durable cars. In a series of simple acts, they purposefully brought attention to how slow their cars were. Slow equals dependable. Their ad made a brilliant case for why owning a small, slow and ugly car. In other words, thinking small actually made you bold and smart. The vibe of advertising soon stepped away from the over the top sales pitches and embraced campaigns that actually acknowledge that people are often skeptical of advertising. Want to check out 24 minimalist print ads to inspire your own creativity? Click the link for the blog.