Stuart Elliott: Why Volkswagen's Bad Behavior Bugs So Many

The title tells it all The spot by Doyle Dane Bernbach offers a prescient trip in time back to an exhibit hall in the postwar era when cars were chromebedecked behemoths and carmakers embraced planned obsolescence The brands on prominent display include DeSoto quotthe car of the futurequot Studebaker quotthe next look on the automotive scenequot Packard meant for those quotbuying your next car for keepsquot and the quotlower longer widerquot Hudson all of them defunct by the time the commercial came out in 1971In a remote corner of the hall a man stands in front of a Beetle a newcomer to American roads in 1949 quotSo Volkswagen will be constantly changing improving and refining this carquot he declares quotnot necessarily to keep in style with the times but to make a better car quot As the camera moves away revealing how no one at the crowded show is paying attention to his spiel an announcer intones quotOf all the promises made at the 1949 auto show we at Volkswagen kept oursquotOuch You aren39t likely to find the words quotVolkswagenquot and quotpromisesquot in the same sentence in an ad in 2015 thanks to the fallout from enormous scandals at VW More than 118 million cars programmed to cheat on emissions tests or with falsified performance reports The dark clouds looming over Volkswagen because of its broken promises today also are casting shadows on other classic Beetle ads from DDB such as quotLemonquot which assured car shoppers quotWe pluck the lemons you get the plumsquot and quotThink smallquot which might now be rewritten to ask quotHow much more smallminded can you get than to rip off your customersquotAnd there39s the effect the crisis is having on the current slogan for the Audi division of Volkswagen which is also implicated in the tampering quotTruth in engineeringquot It39s hard to believe but the slogan still appears in Audi ads Lucky for Audi that Stephen Colbert is no longer portraying the character who promoted the concept of quottruthinessquot for the fakery of the emissions tests fits that term to a TA brand as the definition goes is at its heart a promise to consumers so betrayals of the magnitude of Volkswagen39s send shudders throughout Madison Avenue not only among those involved with peddling the affected models sold under marques like Audi Volkswagen and possibly Porsche VW39s recklessness has put every name brand at risk imperiling the premiums they usually charge compared with privatelabel or store brandsBecause consumers are used to puffery they typically take ad claims with a grain or more of salt In this instance however Volkswagen insisted that the engines being marketed under the rubric of quotclean dieselquot were far superior to diesels being produced by rival automakers Millions of dirty diesels later the company39s claims turned out to be nothing more than a case of Emissions ImpossibleTo this point Volkswagen39s attempts to rebuild trust in the wake of the debacle have been weak and flatfooted There have been apology ads in German newspapers but none in this country where it pretty much has been business as usual marketingwise A quotgoodwill packagequot being offered to American owners of affected cars is small potatoes worth just 1000 with half the sum redeemable only at VW and Audi showrooms At this point those owners probably would rather visit a DeSoto dealerNeeded in this dire situation is an idea as big as the one developed by DDB for the original Beetle What was so remarkable back in the day about ads such as quotThink smallquot quotLemonquot and quot1949 Auto Showquot was how different they were from the traditional way the Detroit brands spoke to consumers The Beetle campaign took a lowkey deferential approach treating prospective customers like intelligent grownups rather than children who could be distracted by a car with shiny trim or as a character in quot1949 Auto Showquot says quotholes in its sidequotAs much havoc as VW has wreaked with its deceptions some humility could help start the brand back on the long road to redemption First up what about a meaculpa ad depicting a rogue diesel engine that carries the headline quotLemonquotThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageMyersBizNet management or associated bloggers

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Stuart Elliott: Why Volkswagen's Bad Behavior Bugs So Many

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