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VOLKSWAGEN

Volkswagen is one of the few mass-market automotive brands to resonate with their customers on an emotional level. Since achieving ubiquity with the iconic Volkswagen Beetle in the 1960’s, VW has continued to not only produce quality vehicles that garner critical praise and win commercial success, but also to refine and leverage the brand’s popular appeal through creative advertising and marketing campaigns.

Founded in 1937 and based in Germany, Volkswagen is internationally known for their unique and versatile vehicles, including the adored VW vans. However it is the company’s passenger cars which have proven immensely popular worldwide: VW has three cars on the list of top 10 best-selling cars of all time, specifically the Passat, the Beetle and the Volkswagen Golf.

Few people know that the Volkswagen brand originated from a project to bring affordable automobiles to the German public, who in the 1930’s owned very few vehicles: at that time, around 1 in 50 Germans had access to a car. Several automakers attempted to target the everyday German with low-priced vehicles, and Volkswagen (translated literally as “people’s car”) entered the race. By the 1950’s, after the company changed hands several times during World War 2, Volkswagen Beetle sales were rapidly rising in Canada, driven by popular interest in a successful ad campaign crafted by the Doyle, Dane Bernbach agency. This marked the beginning of VW’s unique synergy with creative marketing and helped to propel the Beetle into the mass consciousness of the West; in 1972, the Beetle became the world record holder for most cars produced of a single make.

The first version of the Volkswagen Passat was introduced in 1973. The following year, Volkswagen released the Golf, marketed in North America as the Rabbit. The unique hatchback has been a trademark VW model ever since. Later, new Volkswagens including the Jetta, the Cabriolet, and the Scirocco were added to the VW product line, all of which proved popular enough with customers to remain in production.

Sales of Volkswagen vehicles in North America declined during the 1980s but began to recover by the 1990s thanks to favorable reviews by influential commentators in the industry. During the 2000s, Volkswagen enjoyed an increase in sales across North America and chose to move much of their manufacturing back to Germany, away from factories in Mexico and Brazil where Golf and Rabbit models had been produced during the 80s and 90s. The shift in manufacturing was immediately celebrated by many of the same publications that had heaped praise on Volkswagen in the past, signaling a commercial and critical resurgence for VW. Coupled with thoughtful design improvements, creative advertising and a focus on the young customers who have always formed the basis of Volkswagen’s popular success, VW has as a result remained a powerful force in the auto industry up to the present day.

Together with Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen has in recent years focused on improving the efficiency of their diesel engines in an effort to become more environmentally friendly.