It was 50 years ago today that the Volkswagen Beetle became
the best selling car of all time. It surpassed the Model T Ford after the 15,007,034th
Type 1 Beetle was made on February 17, 1972. It is an amazing marketing feat
and one that is a lesson in reshaping a brand and re-branding another.
Most people don’t know that Volkswagen was the brainchild of
Adolph Hitler. When he declared himself to be the Fuhrer of Germany in 1934, he
decided that there needed to be a state run auto manufacturer that would
produce inexpensive and reliable cars for the people (volks in German). So
Volkswagen was the National Socialist party’s car of choice. They began making
the Beetle in 1938 and the first Beetle convertible went to, you guessed it,
Adolph Hitler. It was the Nazi car. (You can see the Nazi swastika in the
original logo above.)
Along came World War II in 1939-45 and the Nazis and Germany
were defeated. The Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg was bombed and destroyed during
the war. In the post-war economy, no one saw much use for anything that had
been tied to the Nazis. Who would buy a car brand that had such sinister roots?
The company was offered to the major car manufacturers of the time. No one
wanted it. Since the brand really had no corporate ownership (it was owned by
the socialist state of Nazi Germany, not by stockholders of a corporation), the
British first took over the carmaker and promptly dropped the swastika on the logo.
Still, the Volkswagen brand had a very military look to it and no one really
saw it as the "people’s car,” but rather the car of the fallen regime.
The leadership of Volkswagen was turned over to Heinz
Nordhoff in 1949. He changed the corporate logo even more to further distance
the carmaker from its roots. The new logo got rid of the hard-lined mechanical
gear shape that looked like it was made for war production. It emphasized two
letters in a circle: VW. But Nordhoff didn’t stop with a new logo. He also knew
he had to rebrand the flagship car. He came up with a new name, the "Beetle” (it had been previously known by
its Nazi name, the KdF-Wagen.) He marketed the car worldwide to young people as
an affordable and reliable car… and its difference. It was round and looked
like its name. When other carmakers were producing very angular and
increasingly large cars, the VW Beetle was something different. His ideas were
perfect for the growing youth market called the Baby Boomers. He recognized
that they wanted something different to drive than what their parents were
driving. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Beetle caught on. Sales boomed
worldwide until Volkswagen Beetle became the world’s best selling car.
When should you freshen up your logo and when should you
scrap the old brand and call yourself something new? Learn a lesson from Heinz
Nordhoff. There is a time to recreate your logo to reflect a change in the way
your target market is reacting to it. Nordhoff didn’t change the brand name of
the company, he changed the way people thought about the brand. The new logo
helped them do this. They had to change their minds about what VW stood for.
But he also knew that he had to rebrand his signature car and distance it from
its original name. Changing the brand made people take notice. Changing the brand also helped people forget
what the Beetle once was.