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What I found most interesting about this campaign was when I heard that this particular automobile came about due to what Hitler wanted. My advertising professor Frank Pinto brought to my attention that Hitler wanted a car small enough to travel on the endless speed roads of Germany. The word behind his involvement and Volkswagen’s Beetle being sold in America is another story. According to Silicon Valley Business Journal, this one campaign that did much more than boost sales and built a lifetime of brand loyalty was the 1960s ad campaign for the Volkswagen Beetle. The work of the ad agency changed the very nature of advertising. From the way it was created to what you see as a consumer today. As we see the ad to the right, they presented just the car with "Lemon" in bold type. The Ad, explained that the chrome strip on the glove compartment was blemished and had to be replaced. The take-away was obvious. If this was idea of a lemon, the Beetle must be a well-built car. This ad was the talk of the town and swept every advertising company in America at that time. Even after 53 years this ad is still talked about. In March 29, 1999, Bob GarfieldBio
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It stated that Kurt Kroner was the one, among 3,389 Wolfsburg, Germany, assembly plant workers, to flag a blemished chrome strip on the glove compartment of a 1961 Volkswagen Beetle and reject the vehicle for delivery. God bless him, because in so doing he also gave advertising permission to surprise, to defy and to engage the consumer without bludgeoning him about the face and body. Kroner offered up a lemon with approximately the same result of Eve offering the apple. Not only did everything change, but suddenly things were a lot more interesting. "In the beginning," adman pundit Jerry Della Femina has written, "there was Volkswagen. That was the day when the new advertising agency was really born.