EOC Week 1: VW Lemon

The ad campaign “Lemon” by Volkswagen is known as one of the greatest advertising achievements.  The campaign was featured in magazines in the 1960’s. “It's the 1960s ad campaign for the Volkswagen Beetle. It, 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” (Business Journal).

Volkswagen did something remarkable in 1960 by creating some of the first ads that truly connected with the customer’s emotions. By stating that cars do have flaws and even their cars do, but that they will do whatever it takes to illuminate those, really connect with the customer and makes VW a brand of quality.

“What made the Volkswagen Beetle ad campaign so radical? Ads before it were either information-based and lacking in persuasion, more fantasy than reality, or reliant on the medium's ability to deliver repeated exposure.

Beetle ads, though, connected with consumers on an emotional level, while conveying a product benefit in a way consumers could relate to. Plus, the ads were breathtakingly simple” (Business Journal).

Visually the ad was simple and too the point, featuring just a picture of the classic VW Bug with the word “lemon” in bold and a description following it. The ad described how Wolfsburg inspectors rejected the entire car because of one blemished chrome strip on the dash. “You couldn't help but love a company willing to kid itself in public, and no one responded more to the Beetle or its advertising than America's vaunted "baby boomers." As these children of postwar affluence came of age in the 1960s, they embraced Volkswagens as a way to show rejection of what they saw as the materialism of older generations” (Auto Editors of Consumer Guide). So what’s a Lemon to Volkswagen? They display their commitment to quality in this simple revolutionary ad campaign that states they will “pick out the lemons and give you the plums”.