Seven lessons about branding from the demise of the Volkswagen Beetle
Image courtesy of Oli Woodman on Unsplash
Back in 2019 the last Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the production line in Mexico. Since its inception, some 23 million units of the once popular vehicle have been sold. Remarkably, the Beetle enjoyed something of a renaissance, when in 1998 it was re-modelled, rebooted and revived in a variety of pastel colours for a new audience. Prior to the decision to discontinue, the Beetle had experienced steadily declining sales, a disastrous carbon-emission scandal and stiff competition in the key target market of the USA, where consumer preference shifted towards sports utility vehicles.
However, there was also another factor that appears to have contributed to the demise of the Beetle, which is the gender of its customer base. Upwards of two thirds of Volkswagen Beetle units were purchased by females compared to about a third by males. A redesign of the vehicle in 2016, to attract more male customers, failed to achieve the desired effect or address the overall decline in sales.
Whilst, as set out above, there are numerous factors that have contributed to the demise of the Volkswagen Beetle, there are clearly interesting insights here about the role of branding and imaging, specifically as it relates to gender marketing. What did Volkswagen get right and what did they get wrong? Well, here are seven branding lessons that other manufactures and service providers can learn from the demise of the iconic ‘bug’.
1. Optics matter
As a manufacturer, Volkswagen does not perform a social service. Therefore, if one of its products has not performed it is obliged to consider its bottom line. That said, the message management and optics have not been great for Volkswagen. The stakeholder value of one of its key demographics (women) is widely presented as some sort of branding problem. The fact is that, although the Beetle ultimately failed because of how it was perceived it, it also achieved success because of how it was perceived. The big takeaway here is that you need to manage your message carefully and not imply (either by accident or design) that your most loyal customers are your ‘branding problem’.
2. Gender neutral branding is not as straightforward as it seems
It is not hard to find a market-place full of products and services that are demography specific. But there is a serious point here about the extent to which, demography is considered in the strategic marketing of products and services that are intended to be demography neutral. Clearly, a product or service with a wider demographic appeal than anticipated, will likely be considered a marketing triumph. However, the opposite might be the case where the appeal narrows or skews towards one demographic to the exclusion of others. That seems to be the situation that Volkswagen unwittingly found itself. The branding lesson for product marketers is that appeal is both personal and social. People migrate to and from a product, not just because they like or dislike it but because others like or dislike it.
3. In branding the customer is always right
‘The customer is always right’ is a well-known marketing mantra, that perfectly applies to the demise of the Volkswagen Beetle. Whatever the rights and wrongs might be, whether you happen to agree or not, once the consumer has spoken the supplier needs to suck it up. This is because a brand is nothing more than a reflection of customer experience back to the supplier. In this instance, as so many others, the product was simply defined by the consumer in the way that they experienced and perceived it. Whether or not the supplier agrees with the methodology for making such an assessment or drawing such a conclusion, is neither here nor there.
4. Beware of brand nostalgia
There are reasons why products are re-launched. Often it has to do with the fact that they were not commercially successful first-time round. However, there are exceptions to the rule, even in the motor vehicle trade. The Fiat 500 and Mini are examples of cars that were re-launched and went on to be as profitable, at the second time of asking, as they were at the first. The challenge however is the extent to which consumers who use a product now, will experience or perceive the product as consumers did back then. Marketing departments do a lot of research into this very issue so that manufacturers do not commit carelessly to these decisions. Notwithstanding, it bears reminding that a brand appeal, whilst personal and social, may not necessarily travel so well when time is a factor.
5. Know what you don’t know
There is a salutary lesson here about how branding works, which is that: ‘there are things that you know that you know and there are things that you know that don’t know’. The brand of the Volkswagen Beetle may not be what the manufacturer intended, but it appears to be what some of its consumers experienced and perceived. The lesson here is that experience and perception are organic and dynamic. Once a product or service is made available in the marketplace, consumer attitudes, behaviour and sentiment act upon and define it. Not even the best marketing campaign can determine how consumers will feel about a product, when the proverbial rubber hits the road.
6. Views can quickly establish and once they do, they are difficult to change
Just as fascinating as how customer perceptions develop, is how quickly they are ‘baked in’? That appears to have been the case with the Volkswagen Beetle. Over the years, since its relaunch, the Beetle has been designated a motor vehicle better suited for and more likely to be driven by, females rather than males. There appears to be no clear rhyme or reason for this perception. Especially, given the fact that Volkswagen do not appear to have made any conscious effort to market the motor vehicle in such a way. Nonetheless, there is a lesson to be learnt here about the complex psychology of customer perception and how it can define a brand, but that is a subject for another blog.
7. The law of unintended consequences
The marketing of the Volkswagen Beetle was carefully designed to tap into the strong nostalgia of the product. But can product nostalgia be gender specific? May be so. In the same way as a song can remind you of a particular moment in time, event or lived experience, so apparently can motor vehicles. In the case of the Volkswagen Beetle, the imagery appears to be very much associated with the ‘flower power’, sandal wearing generation. This sort of imagery could suggest a greater association with femininity rather than masculinity (something that Volkswagen may not necessarily have anticipated). There is a further point about nostalgia that needs to be taken into consideration, which is that it is a transient rather than permanent state.
A generation on from its 1998 re-launch, the Volkswagen Beetle may not have been the commercial success that the manufacturer anticipated. However, that doesn’t mean it was a branding failure. The creative and quirky way in which the Beetle brand was rejuvenated for a new generation, was in many ways a branding success and the strong appeal to female customers provides evidence of that. Sadly, for the Beetle, the challenges to widen its appeal and sustain success over a longer period, were beyond the capacity of the brand to overcome. The corollary of the above is that with branding there is only ever one judgement that matters and it is the customer who delivers it.
