The Creatives Room

Volkswagen's Greatest Ads

In the late 1950s, Doyle Dane Bernbach took a small, ugly German car with a difficult history and made it the most desirable vehicle in America. The 'Think Small' campaign for Volkswagen is widely considered the most influential advertising ever created - not because it sold cars, but because it invented a new way of talking to consumers. Honest, self-deprecating, witty, and respectful of the reader's intelligence. It changed everything that came after it.

The campaigns in this collection

  1. Tiny Bottles - Volkswagen · McCarthy & Co.

    The Volkswagen Tera goes further on less fuel, so the campaign translates efficiency into distance running, where staying hydrated normally means repeated water stops. Subverting the number of bottles a runner needs turns an abstract consumption figure into something physically legible.

  2. Eyes where you need them - Volkswagen · Ogilvy South Africa

    The new Amarok has a 360-degree system including a Terrain Camera that shows the ground beneath the vehicle, effectively eyes underneath. So the launch put eyes underneath as well, running outdoor placements built to be double-taken rather than read.

  3. Jubeln Verbindet - Volkswagen

    Volkswagen "Jubeln Verbindet". VW frames how shared celebration brings people together.

  4. Arrivals - Volkswagen

    Volkswagen "Arrivals". VW frames emotional homecomings and arrivals.

  5. Beetle - Volkswagen

    Volkswagen "Beetle". A VW spot celebrating the iconic Beetle.

  6. Spaceman: Journey Beyond - Volkswagen · 2024

    Volkswagen "Spaceman: Journey Beyond". A VW spot framing exploration and journeys beyond the everyday.

  7. The New Tiguan - Volkswagen · DDB · 2023

    Volkswagen "The New Tiguan". A home-and-nature setting frames the SUV within everyday family life.

  8. That Looks Fun - Volkswagen · DDB Sydney · 2021

    Low, tilted angle on the front three-quarter of a red Volkswagen Golf GTI at night on a wet street. A pink-purple neon bar overhead reflects off the glossy bodywork while the LED headlight strip and one lit headlamp glow cyan-white above the honeycomb grille. The plate reads N-VW 199. Wet asphalt, b

  9. Taos - Volkswagen · DDB Russia · 2021

    Wide dusk scene of a vehicle's twin headlights cutting a bright band across a dark open plain, motion blur streaking the foreground road. A deep blue sky layered with clouds meets a thin band of warm orange light at the horizon, with distant hills behind. A moody, near-monochrome blue grade and a le

  10. Deja De Ser Copiloto - Volkswagen · DDB Barcelona · 2016

    DDB España's platform for the Volkswagen Polo splits the world into pilots and copilots - those who take the wheel of their own lives and those who let others decide. Under the hashtag DejaDeSerCopiloto, the campaign urges young buyers to stop being passengers and take control, using everyday situat

  11. Born Confident - volkswagen

    Directed by VIRGIL - frameset.app/search/brand/volkswagen/born-confident

  12. Stay True - Volkswagen · 2020

    Volkswagen set out to differentiate its compact SUV lineup from utilitarian competitors by tapping into the insight that adult life constantly pressures people to compromise their individuality and conform to safe, conventional choices. Created by agency Grabarz & Partner, the "Stay True" campaign r

  13. The Originals - Volkswagen · Ogilvy · 2021

    Volkswagen "The Originals". VW celebrates its original, iconic models and their legacy.

  14. Baby Gesture Control - Volkswagen · 2017

    To sell Gesture Control on the Golf R-Line, Volkswagen argues that the technology is not new at all - people have always commanded things with a wave of the hand. The film opens on archive black and white of a conductor cueing an orchestra, a mother coaxing a baby into its first steps and a police o

  15. Rebuild Trust - Volkswagen · deutsch la · 2016

    Volkswagen's 'Rebuild Trust': the brand drops 'Das Auto' - its own famous swagger - and addresses the trust deficit head-on. The insight: after a credibility crisis, the bravest media choice is admitting the old voice can't be used; humility as the new positioning.

  16. Don't Selfie and Drive - volkswagen · DDB México · 2015

    DDB Mexico's road-safety campaign for Volkswagen targets a specifically modern distraction: taking a selfie behind the wheel. The insight: a selfie demands you look at yourself instead of the road, so don't selfie and drive names the vanity of the act as the danger, making the point that a photo isn

  17. Automatic Distance Control / Bi-Xenon Headlamps / Hill Hold - Volkswagen India · DDB Mudra Group"/> · 2015

    Volkswagen India aimed to demystify premium, highly technical safety and performance features that felt like intimidating, irrelevant engineering jargon to the average Indian car buyer. The campaign taps into the insight that while consumers desire vehicle safety, complex automotive terms alienate t

  18. Total Mess - Volkswagen · DDB Buenos Aires · 2019

    Volkswagen Argentina's "Total Mess": driver-assistance features demonstrated not in futuristic simulations but in the places where driving is genuinely chaotic - no lights, no signs, no crossings. The insight: technology features are usually shown in sterile isolation; showing them surviving a real

  19. You'll never be surprised on road again - volkswagen · DMG · 2015

    DMG's campaign for Volkswagen's electronic brake assist sells safety as the absence of nasty surprises. The insight: the danger on the road is the thing you don't see coming, so a system that reacts before you can promises you'll never be caught off guard again, turning a technical feature into peac

  20. California camper van - Sightseeing - Volkswagen · 2018

    Volkswagen's "Sightseeing" for the California camper: the van has spent 30 years discovering sights while carrying a blind spot at its rear - now fixed by an optional rear-view camera. The campaign reframes the camera as a new way of seeing the sights, keeping the traveller DNA intact. The insight:

  21. It's important to stop at the right moment. - volkswagen · GMP Bucharest · 2015

    GMP Bucharest sells the new Passat's City Emergency Brake on the value of good timing. The insight: most urban collisions come down to a fraction of a second too late, so it's important to stop at the right moment frames the automatic brake as the split-second judgement a distracted driver can't alw

  22. 50 Years of Pure Passion - Volkswagen · 2026

    A 60-second film tracing the Golf GTI across five decades of British life, from a family taking delivery of a Mk1 in the 1970s through to the Edition 50, told through the changing relationship between owners and the car rather than the cars themselves - real owners, collectors and families of every

  23. True VW - Volkswagen · junge robbe · 2019

    Volkswagen had run a broad TV launch for the T-Cross but still needed the feature-driven buyer, the one who compares specifications before anything else. Rather than talking to them in brand terms, the tactical work went to where those comparisons are actually made.

  24. Unexpected Affairs - Volkswagen · McCarthy & Co. · 2026

    To promote the VW Tera's Blind Spot Monitor, the campaign set out to make a technical safety feature feel compelling. The strategy drew a direct parallel between the feature's function and the relatable human insight that life is full of unexpected situations you "don’t see coming." The creative ide

Why this collection is worth studying

The Volkswagen DDB campaigns of the 1960s are required reading for any creative. But read them carefully: what made them work wasn't the jokes or the white space or the long copy. It was the discipline of telling the absolute truth about the product, even when that truth was unflattering. Honesty, it turns out, is the most disarming creative strategy there is.

See also

Volkswagen's Best Ads & Campaigns - The Creatives Room