Thinking Small and Winning Big

Volkswagen's Beetle became history's bestselling automobile in 1972 when its sales reached 15,007,340 and passed the mark set by Henry Ford's pioneering Model T. Small wonder. The bug was backed by what a panel of judges assembled by Advertising Age magazine last week called the best American ad campaign since World War II. Created by Doyle Dane Bernbach, VW's ads ran from 1959 to 1972.

The ads brought wit, intelligence and self-effacing humor to auto advertising, up to then dour and staid. One featured the line "Think small," which was heresy in the days when Detroit was building gigantic gas guzzlers. Another showed a VW partially submerged in water, and proud owners began to brag, "It floats." In 1969, in celebration of the first U.S. manned moon landing, VW ran a picture of the lunar-excursion module with the caption: "It's ugly, but it gets you there."

Other top campaigns picked by Ad Age's panel: Leo Burnett's program for Marlboro cigarettes ("Come to where the flavor is"), McCann-Erickson's efforts for Alka-Seltzer ("Try it, you'll like it"), and Doyle Dane's campaign for Avis ("We try harder").