Do car ads need to talk down to people in order to be engaging?

May 22, 2025 Steve Media Analysis 0

One of the laziest kinds of clickbait in the auto history media are posts of old advertisements, commercials and various types of marketing videos. All too often the text that accompanies the ads could be charitably summed up as “filler.” It doesn’t add much, if anything, to the conversation.

That’s why Indie Auto tends to avoid these kinds of posts. However, this morning I came across a Volkswagen commercial that reminded me of the groundbreaking work of its ad agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach.

I grant you that the above commercial, which appears to be about an early-70s Super Beetle, is more entertaining than informative.

If you dare to delve into the comment thread below the YouTube post, you will find a lively discussion about whether the ad really was banned and whether it was possible to roll back an odometer by driving in reverse.

I will leave those debates to others because I want to focus on a broader point — that a car ad can be engaging without talking down to viewers.

Look at ‘smart’ shoppers reacting to the AMC Gremlin!

As a point of contrast, take a look at the above 1970 AMC Gremlin commercial that Joe Ligo (2025) showcased in the third episode of his Public Broadcasting Service series, The Last Independent Automaker.

Both the Volkwagen and AMC ads try to be funny with hijinks that you wouldn’t see in real life. However, the VW ad presented its protagonist, an adolescent boy, as being clever in outfoxing his dad about driving the family’s Beetle.

Also see ‘Why did American Motors fire Wells Rich and Greene in 1972?’

In contrast, the AMC ad showed a bunch of guys so infatuated with the styling of the just-introduced Gremlin that they acted in vapid ways. Sure, it’s slapstick humor, but it nevertheless presented the people involved as downright stupid.

This was hardly the only commercial produced by Wells Rich and Greene that effectively talked down to people. I can’t find it posted on YouTube, but I recall another commercial for a 1970 Hornet where the new owner ate a dealer invoice to hide the low price of the car from a neighbor he wanted to impress. Even as a 13 year old I thought that was a pretty dumb commercial.

VW Beetle ads appealed to people’s intelligence

Compare AMC’s approach to that of Volkswagen’s, where for years they focused on educating the public about why a weird-looking, air-cooled economy car from the 1930s was a better buy than Detroit’s snazzy new wares.

For example, above you will find a 1964 commercial that showed why the Beetle had advantages in cold and snowy climates. All-wheel-drive vehicles may be commonplace today, but back then none of the U.S. passenger-car manufacturers addressed this practical consideration for a goodly portion of the nation’s drivers.

The next commercial below talked about how the Beetle was so easy to work on that “(y)ou can tune the engine with a screwdriver instead of a committee.”

A series of three commercials discussed how the Beetle was changed only to improve its functionality rather than its styling. This was blasphemy at a time when annual styling changes were emphasized by U.S. automakers.

Here is an ad that showed how easy the VW was to work on by noting that it took only four bolts to remove the engine. This emphasis on the practical aspects of owning a car was unusual for that era, when marketing usually focused on a car’s styling and sex appeal.

Finally, below is an ad that presented a dramatic demonstration of how the Beetle was so well constructed that it could float in water.

Why Volkswagen could get away with a frivolous ad

The point I am trying to make by posting these additional VW commercials is that the automaker could get away with a more light-hearted spot because it had spent a decade relentlessly emphasizing the practical qualities of the Beetle.

AMC didn’t have that advantage, particularly because it ran away from its Rambler heritage in the 1970s. The Gremlin was treated as just another stylistic fad along life’s highway — the automotive equivalent of the hula-hoop. Thus, when the newness of the car’s styling wore off, there was little to justify the Gremlin’s existence besides gimmicks such as seats with Levi-looking upholstery.

Also see ‘If you ran VW in 1959 how would you prepare for Detroit’s compacts?’

In the recesses of my mind I recall an enthusiast magazine — perhaps Car and Driver — summing up the mid-60s Ramblers as “dumb cars for dumb people.” If we accept that premise (at least for the sake of discussion), was the Gremlin really an improvement? Or did AMC and its marketeers try to double down on dumb?

The eventual decline of the VW Beetle illustrates how even the best advertising campaign can’t save a car that has become obsolete. However, for a remarkably long stretch of time the Beetle managed to carve out a decent market by appealing to people’s desire for a car that did a better job of meeting their basic needs than Detroit’s mansions of glory.

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