The Importance of the Volkswagen Lemon Ad
“How could Volkswagen sell Hitler’s favorite car to the American people only a decade and a half after World War II?” In a very ironic way.
The Volkswagen Lemon ad was a very important ad in the 1960’s. They created the “Lemon” ad for the Beetle car. As the end of the 50’s approached, cars were becoming more than just a means for transportation. They were becoming a symbol of status and a sort of fashion statement.
If you’ve seen a VW Beetle, you know that they are small and quite ugly. They are not stylish at all and at that time people were looking for cars that would earn them bragging rights. As you can imagine, that made for a difficult task for those whose job it was to advertise the car. Not only that, it was known as a “Nazi” car whose development was tied to Adolph Hitler himself. With all of those things working against them, how were they able to sell this model? By being honest. They started one ad with the words “Presenting America’s Slowest Fastback.”
A slow car is at the top of a short list of things that we don’t look for when shopping for a car. So why tell us? For shock factor maybe. By the time we read the headline, we find it so hilarious and refreshing that we keep reading and once that happens, we’ve already done exactly what the advertisers have set out for us to do. Once they’ve gotten our attention, they can continue to tell us about all of the great features that the car does has.
In conclusion, the Lemon ad is known as one of the greatest ads of all time because they used irony to sell a small car whose look was much different than other cars that were being sold in this country at that time.
