In the ’60s, VW advertising’s Mad Men, were obviously also very lonely men. Bitter, lonely men.
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Last Call – Misogynistic-gnügen Edition
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The 60's were a very strange time. The ad might have actually worked.
The whole flower power thing didn't gain traction until the late '60's. It was in part a backlash to the attitudes of the 50's and early 60's, as expressed by this ad. -
VW had some of the best ads ever back then. This is one of my favorites. The thing was, they told the truth. It wasn't really embellished and was usually a bit demeaning of their own product but god I love it. http://www.vwbug.com/vintageads/getad.php?id=3&am…
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Not only will she crash your car, but calculating the after tax cost of that fender will be well beyond her estrogen-adled math skills. Take THAT wives and mothers of America!
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Mom owned a couple of stickshift Beetles over a period of almost a decade. She never crunched them.
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My Mom's VW almost never had straight fenders.
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Mine traded hers for a 3 on the floor Mustang. After she got used to the shift pattern in it she ended up putting Dad's 4 speed Mustang through the garage door.
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Okay this one ad is a little lame, but don't trash the Doyle Dane Bernbach VW ad campaign of 59-72: it made humor, intelligence, and irony fair game in the advertising world, letting us all be a little less frustrated and brain dead when we stare at ads.
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Yeah, Amber's gonna be really impressed by this one. God help this copywriter if she could reach back through time and educate him just a little bit. She's the VW babe personified, and could replace that fender herself, I'm sure.
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There's some skill in managing to crumple the fender without bending the bumper. Precise accidents are the best.
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Or even scuff the dog dishes!
These ads aren't misogynistic at all. They're applauding women's skill at the exact art of fender bending!
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Doyle, Dane Bernbach were genius, as has often been observed. Their VW ads set new standards for advertising because they broke a lot of rules and relied on cognitive dissonance to make the sales pitch.
Here, we see a car with minor fender damage. Car companies then didn't ever show their cars in less than pristine conditions or settings. And the header is all about the comforts of the hearth and family life, warm, rosy, dependable and comfortable, affluent. That's a lot to pack into one sentence about destruction. -
I'm with some of the other commenters. Were these ads deliberately misogynistic, or were they playing on the cultural shifts occurring at the time? My guess is the ads were targeted at the very people that would have found them offensive if they were ads for Fords or Chevys.
Out of its cultural and historical context the ad is misogynistic, but placed in its cultural and historical context, the ad is edgy, funny, and undermining of the status quo. -
"Ladies Drink Free" tsk tsk tsk…. but very funny.
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This reminds me of the VW ads of late: A few friends casually chatting and generally enjoying a ride in their brand new Jetta or Passat. Then, in Final Destination fashion, another car comes out of nowhere to t-bone them. After the accident, the friends look on their crumpled mess with ashen faces and gasp "Oh Sh**". But you don't hear the "it" part of "shit".
The moral of the ads seemed to be "If you drive our cars, you WILL get in a terrible accident… but live!"-
The best of those VW crash ads is the one with the guys talking about the Viagra ad they just heard on the radio and the side effects warning…!
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"That's not a medical problem, that's a scheduling problem."
"Carol, hold my calls."
"Nevermind that, hold my mail!"
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Back in the 70s I owned 1970 Beetle and managed to hit a Gremlin it wound up looking very much like this photo. I can attest that it was easy and inexpensive to fix just a hand full of bolts to take off and put back on, I think it took me lounger to realign the headlight than replace the fender. I did send the woman in the Gremlin home to her Mad Men era husband with a similar dent as I recall my insurance paid much much more to have that AMC fixed. Those Beetles might have been unsafe at any speed(not like SPEED was much of an issue) but they sure were fun and easy to care for.
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Corvairs are unsafe at any speed; VWs are small on safety.
<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TzketAWQL._SL500_AA300_.jpg">-
Now there's something you don't see very often. Very nice.
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Where are the comments from jezebel? I have come to rely on their sense of humor and perspective.
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I don't think they know about us yet. Hopefully, it stays that way.
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I've got a frilly pink Banhammer warmed up and waiting just for them.
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Hah! Bring it on… "ladies".
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I don't get angry. When my wife bangs something, I try to return the favor.
![http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TzketAWQL._SL500_AA300_.jpg">](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TzketAWQL._SL500_AA300_.jpg">){kind=link}
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