[MissMoppet]

Looking at today's car ads, some of which barely show the car, has got me reminiscing about my time as an insignificant member of the VW marketing section nearly 50 years ago. Then we launched the Polo at the same time as Ford brought out the Fiesta. Then Ford had more than 30% UK market share while VW had less than 6% with a correspondingly lower ad budget. We were told that the UK sales of VW/Audis took up a fortnight of production at Wolfsburg. But we had a very clever ad agency DDB who indulged in comparative ads that are probably not allowed today. They laid a trap that Ford fell into.

VW dealers were encouraged to buy a Fiesta from their local Ford rival and display it on the forecourt - under the banner "Drive a Fiesta, buy a Polo." Amazingly most secured a 17½% discount as well. Stung by this Fords ran national ads showing the Fiesta and Polo side and side and listing the benefits of each - the Fiesta list was of course longer. So Ford were adverting our Polo. At that time many punters had never heard of the Polo so Fords lost out again.
But perhaps the ad that most tickled us was one put out that simply showed the Fiesta with the slogan ". . . but underneath it's still a Ford." Cruel but telling.

The first version of the Polo had a distinctive rear end and stood out from the Golf, but subsequent versions seemed just to be variations of the Golf: confusing to everyone. Incidentally there was a legend that the Golf should have been called something else but was misheard over the telephone. And we all thought that the Scirocco would have sold better with the "four rings" on the grille: but what's in a badge?


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