The Real Mad Men by Andrew Cracknell

“book” wasn’t of the literary type, it was for gambling on the horses. “I perfected my betting abilities. So I supported my wife and two children betting on the races. I had a horror of becoming the world’s oldest working copywriter. I could have continued at the track because I would have made more money than I would have working in advertising—but I got offered a job at the one agency I wanted to work at, which was Doyle Dane Bernbach.”
    Koenig’s main claim to fame until then as a writer was a much-applauded campaign for Timex watches: “Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” Amongst other “torture tests,” a Timex watch was immersed in the Dead Sea, put through a washing machine’s spin cycle, and even hosted by the digestive tract of a family pet. But this wasn’t the campaign that got him into DDB. He’d had a tip from Rita Seldon, a DDB writer he’d worked with previously, about a job going there. Bernbach looked through his book and, in the now regular pattern, hired him on the strength of an ad for a root beer that had been rejected by a previous client.
    CARL HAHN HAD ALREADY written the VW strategy. It was the measure against which all the agencies he had visited had failed. He wanted everything about VW to be honest, transparent, and straightforward—the product, the pricing, the dealers, even down to the policy of changing the external appearance of the car as little as possible. This was in direct contrast with Detroit who deliberately made major design changes every year to make their cars obsolete and force an image-conscious public to continue forking out for the latest models.
    It was therefore a simple matter for Ed Russell, the head account man, to write a strategy calling for honest advertising. The first line of the “Statement” as the strategy paper at DDB was called, was “The VW is an honest car.” Reading the body copy you immediately appreciate the candor with which Koenig approached the reader, very much following the strategy. In one way it’s Page One advertising copy, packed with product features and USPs. But it reads like a friendly chat—enthusiastic, yes, but more of a tip from one friend to another about something he or she ought to know.
    â€œWe just took [the] product and said what made it good. And we were fortunate that there was a lot to say about the VW.”
    JULIAN KOENIG
    What is more startling is the apparent challenge in the headlines, not just of the reader but of the product itself. They were all fundamentally negative, and that simply wasn’t done.
    It’s impossible to imagine the jaw-dropping amazement with which Detroit executives and their advertising agencies must have viewed these ads from a rival car manufacturer, apparently advising their potential market that the car was a failure and of limited ambition. But it was all part of the same candor—tell ’em like it is and it’ll intrigue them and then amuse them. But don’t leave it there—while they’re busy appreciating you, gently insinuate some sales points.
    THERE’S A CURIOUS STORY around the origination of the “Think Small” ad, one which enhances the already noble role of another bold and prescient client who would put his money behind such an unorthodox and, at that point, unproven and manifestly risky strategy.
    The ad was originally meant to be a corporate ad, advertising the marque rather than a specific model, and it showed three huge American cars. Koenig wrote the headline “Think Small” to contrast with this visual. Then, as Koenig remembers it, “Helmut wouldn’t use it. And he who controls the [layout] pad in those days, controls the ad. So we finally come up with Willkommen, which I didn’t want but Helmut wanted, and with ‘Think Small’ in the copy. In DDB, copywriters and art directors didn’t go to the client with ads,