Doyle Dane Bernbach's 1960 "Lemon" for Volkswagen and Jim Wangers, an advertising executive at McManus, John & Adams who promoted the Pontiac GTO, reshaped 1960s auto advertising while General Motors blocked a controversial late-1967 Pontiac ad.
Doyle Dane Bernbach ran a stark black Beetle image labelled "Lemon" in 1960 to argue Volkswagen would not sell flawed cars. The visual-first approach caught attention and prompted other agencies to rely more on imagery than copy.
Jim Wangers used dramatic magazine covers, television spots and pop-culture tie-ins to build the 1964 Pontiac GTO's profile. Those efforts built on John DeLorean, Pontiac division head, who had proposed installing a larger engine in the Tempest.
Pontiac produced a striking advertisement in late 1967 that General Motors executives refused to release, illustrating tension between creative advertising and corporate approval. The episode highlighted how imagery-driven campaigns became central to selling cars in the 1960s.
This summary is based on coverage by The Autopian.
Read the full article at The Autopian.
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