What makes the Volkswagen Beetle Think Small campaign so special?
Bernbach's working method was to pair creatives with copywriters, which is now considered common, but was revolutionary in the 1950s. In the 1940s, he met modernist graphic artist Paul Rand, with whom he later worked at an agency. Rand's text-graphic compositional unity had a great influence on him, and they agreed that the foundation of advertisements should be a creative concept.
Volkswagen allocated $600,000 for the advertising campaign. At today's exchange rate, this is nearly 180 million Forints, which seems like an incredibly high amount in today's Hungarian context, even if it includes media costs. It is worth noting that the population of the United States is about twenty times that of Hungary, meaning that proportionally the amount shrinks to 9 million Forints. Thus, it is no longer such a huge budget for a nationwide campaign by a car manufacturer. In 1956, Chevrolet spent 30 million, and the second-largest Ford spent 25 million dollars on advertising in a year, which means proportionally about 40-50 times more than Volkswagen.
Agency work in the 1960s
From today's perspective, it is customary to develop a concept with a creative agency, and then the media agency buys placements for us in various media. During this period, the term "creative agency" in its current sense did not exist. The agency received a 15% commission from all of the client's advertising spending and in return provided the advertisement's creative free of charge.
This also shows that the creative profession was not valued. One of the most influential advertising professionals of the era, Rosser Reeves, considered maximizing sales increase to be the most important measure of advertisements. To this end, he believed that emphasizing the product's USP (Unique Sales Proposition) was the most effective approach. The method was effective, but did not result in aesthetically pleasing advertisements.
For the above reasons, the process of creative planning also differed radically from what is customary today. The account manager was the only one who maintained contact with the client and directed the copywriter. Most often, the client's ideas were implemented word for word. The completed text was given to an illustrator, who created graphics that matched the theme. The account manager had the right to reject and have everything redesigned if they were not satisfied with the final result. In this division, creatives never met the client and did not particularly know the brand they were working on.
The creators of the creative concept
Bernbach entrusted the creative creation to the Helmut Krone – Julian Koenig duo. Although the 1950s were a long time ago and time beautifies memories, anyone who has worked on an advertising campaign in their life knows that things never go simply; conflict is simply encoded in such a collaboration. (For those who have not yet experienced this, I recommend these two links for acquaintance, tuning in, and sensitizing: Client's Mouth Facebook group, Accounts from Hell)
Helmut Krone's parents emigrated to New York before his birth. He grew up as an American, only his name revealed his origins. Paul Rand's work had a significant impact on him, which may have played a role in him becoming a graphic designer. According to his colleagues, he perfected his work with German cold-bloodedness and patience, spending dozens of hours finding the perfect settings and proportions. The end result was so refined and clear that the effort was not visible. He previously worked on advertisements for a local Volkswagen dealership and even drove a Beetle in his daily life, which is why Bernbach chose him.
The copywriter's partner on the project was Julian Koenig, born in 1921. At the beginning of his career, he tried copywriting but was disillusioned by the lack of creativity in the profession. After a brief professional detour as a horse racing bookmaker, he joined DDB in 1958. A good example of the liberal spirit of the place is that Koenig, who is of Jewish descent, was not bothered by having to work on a „Nazi past” car.
Krone was even more opposed to the idea of the text being simply honest. His initial concept was a colorful advertisement in line with the spirit of the times, with a 3/4 – 1/4 ratio of images to text, justified text in three columns, and colorful illustrations showing the car in an idyllic landscape.
Volkswagen: Think small
However, Bernbach wanted to emphasize honesty in the advertisement, which he also experienced during his visit to the Wolfsburg factory. Koenig supported this direction as well. He showed the first version of the advertising text to the client, Helmut Schmitz. He noticed a sentence that read: „Perhaps we grew so big because we thought small.” This sentence was condensed to Think Small and suggested as the headline. Koenig was satisfied with this, as he had originally thought in this way, but Krone persuaded him to change it to Wilkommen in the first version.
Krone was deeply affected by the change in direction. It took Bernbach's intervention to persuade Krone to overcome his reservations and create some graphic versions for the modified text. After several versions, he suggested a traditional three-column text layout with an unconventional visual presentation:
Krone intentionally used a sans serif typeface because serif fonts were characteristic of advertisements of the time. The Futura font used, with its numerous ligatures and breaks, gave the text a somewhat amateurish effect, making it more authentic and direct. This astonished the reader and prompted them to stop.
The layout perfectly harmonized with Koenig's direct, no-frills style. A period was placed behind the headline to emphasize and enhance its impact. The period at the end of the title later became one of Krone's trademarks.
The advertisement was designed in black and white for cost-effectiveness, which further increased the contrast against the colorful pages of Life magazine, where it was first presented. The logo was embedded in the third paragraph. In Krone's earlier works, he generally did not include a logo, but here he decided to use one, placing it in a more unconventional spot.
Although the original idea was a drawn illustration of the car, they ultimately opted for a photo that depicted it from the front and side, surrounded by a sea of space. Every aspect of the advertisement suggested simplicity and honesty.
Krone hated the final advertisement so much that he traveled abroad during its release out of fear of receiving scathing criticism. The exact opposite happened; he received words of praise and recognition from everywhere, although Koenig noted that the advertisement only became truly famous later.
The advertisement elicited some disdain in professional circles on Madison Avenue, but this did not bother either the agency or the client, as sales skyrocketed. The public loved the work, it immediately became a topic of conversation, teenagers cut it out of the newspaper and pasted it on their walls, and there was a flood of enthusiastic feedback.
Wit and intellectual humor
In 1959, Julian Koenig left DDB to start his own company. Krone's new copywriter partner became Bob Levenson. By 1960, Levenson revised and made the text even more direct, while Koenig made minor adjustments to the graphics.
In the following decade, they came up with numerous variants. Their success is best evidenced by the fact that the format they invented became a trademark of the Volkswagen brand. In later years, they even dared to showcase a broken car to draw attention to the affordability of repairs. Another creative one They replaced the small car with the image of the famous lunar landing module of the Apollo space program, but the advertisement still worked due to its distinctive format.
AdAge selected Volkswagen's Think Small campaign as the first among the 100 best advertisements of the century, ahead of Coca-Cola, Nike, and Apple ads. Numerous books and analyses have tried to decipher the secret of its success. It was created at a time when car advertisements were sources of wit and intellectual humor. This advertisement is not only a historical document but also a legendary piece of advertising history.
