167:. DDB built a print campaign that focused on the Beetle's form, which was smaller than most of the cars being sold at the time. This unique focus in an automobile advertisement brought wide attention to the Beetle. DDB had "simplicity in mind, contradicting the traditional association of automobiles with luxury". Print advertisements for the campaign were filled mostly with white space, with a small image of the Beetle shown, which was meant to emphasize its simplicity and minimalism, and the text and fine print that appeared at the bottom of the page listed the advantages of owning a small car.
118:, in a survey of North American advertisements. Koenig was followed by many other writers during Krone's art-directorship of the first 100 ads of the campaign, most notably Bob Levenson. The campaign has been considered so successful that it "did much more than boost sales and build a lifetime of brand loyalty The ad, 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."
179:, designed to give the ad a natural and honest feel. The image of the car was placed in the top left corner and angled in a way that directed the reader's attention toward the headline. Finally, the ad was printed in black and white, at a time when full colour advertisements were widely used. Over time, the layout changed but the essential executional elements were used consistently to give a sense of a "house style".
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The creative execution broke with convention in a number of ways. Although the layout used the traditional format - image, headline and three-column body were retained, other differences were subtle yet sufficient to make the advertisement stand out. It used a
154:). Automobile advertisements back then focused on providing as much information as possible to the reader instead of persuading the reader to purchase a product, and the advertisements were typically rooted more in fantasy than in reality.
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Helmut Krone came up with the design for "Lemon" and "Think Small" simultaneously. Krone teamed up with copywriter Julian Koenig to develop the "Think Small" and "Lemon" ads for
Volkswagen under the supervision of
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The most popular variant of the Think Small advertisement features a bare background, with only the VW Beetle in view to shift the reader's focus to the vehicle immediately.
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and other top cartoonists of that decade drew cartoons showing
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children and "Americans obsessed with muscle cars". The Beetle, a "compact, strange-looking automobile", was manufactured in a plant built by the
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The campaign has been the subject of a number of books, with serious scholarly analysis of the campaign's key success factors, including:
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in 1959. Doyle Dane
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font at a time when serif fonts were normal. It included a full-stop after the tagline "Think Small." The body copy was full of
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Soap, Sex, and
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Thinking Small: The Long, Strange Trip of the
Volkswagen Beetle
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Thinking Small: The Long, Strange Trip of the
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Thinking Small: The Long, Strange Trip of the
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352:"Top ad campaign of century? VW Beetle, of course"
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297:. Crain Communications Inc. March 29, 1999.
368:"Did Hitler really invent the Volkswagen?"
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