When advertising tried harder...
(click ad) In honor of the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing (Apollo 11 launched July 16, 1969) let's revisit a buygone day of advertising when the Doyle Dane Bernbach Volkswagen ads were the envy of every ad copywriter and art director in the solar system. This gem ran in Life on August 8th of that year, two weeks after the astronauts returned safely to Earth. No product shot, no body copy, no clowning Peter Stormare, no sexist Beetle belly visuals, no lame Night of The Hunter riffing. Just a timely, simple, effective truthful idea that sold the hell out of the car (image via).
posted by copyranter @ 11:15 AM
6 Comments:
You know what it would take to pass an ad like this today? No product shot, no legal disclaimer, no list of features... You'd have to club the client over the head and run to the printer's.
It's amazing how many employees at DDB these days have little idea who Bernbach was. Gone are the days when every new employee got a little book of Bernbach quotations, and everyone knew his work.
My all-time favorite ad. The anniversary of the moon landing reminded me of this one, so I went looking for it and found your site. Thanks for digging up this classic and posting it.
Copywriter: Larry Levenson
Art Director: Jim Brown
There is something to be said of traditional methods of advertising that seem to have been forgotten in this digital age. Thanks for bringing back some good memories.
Today, somebody would say: Can we change "It's ugly" for "It's not pretty" so it doesn't sound so strong?
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