VW Hires Burger King's Add Agency

Remember the Volkswagen Rabbit? The boxy, fuel-efficient hatchback was launched in 1974 to replace the legendary Beetle as the company's big seller and was the first VW made in the U.S. It also became known for catching fire and breaking down, and thus became the symbol of VW's collapse in America through the 1980s. At the insistence of VW's German parent, the Rabbit name was killed in 1985, and the Westmoreland (Pa.) assembly plant was shuttered soon after.Advertisement

So it was audacious indeed when Alex Bogusky, chief creative officer of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, which took over the VW advertising account last December, suggested resurrecting the Rabbit name. In a Mar. 20 meeting at the Auburn Hills (Mich.) headquarters of VW of America, with company brass and two members of its dealer council, Bogusky reasoned that the redesigned Golf launching in the U.S. this year had already been selling in Europe for two years, so auto writers probably wouldn't pay much attention to the stateside debut. "So let's change the story," offered the 42-year-old ad director before the assembled group. Nervous laughter followed. VW supervisory board Chairman Ferdinand K. Piëch, known for his bad temper and for insisting that VW have global model names, was certain to disapprove. But VW's U.S. chief, Adrian M. Hallmark, bought in and took the idea to the carmaker's German headquarters in Wolfsburg on Mar. 25. Worldwide brand chief Wolfgang Bernhard said yes, and ordered new signs, photography, and press releases to be rushed for the New York International Auto Show on Apr. 12, despite whispers that Piëch, already gunning for Bernhard's boss, management board Chairman Bernd Pischetsrieder, was unhappy.

Many love the Rabbit idea, but plenty hate it. That's just the kind of strong, polarized reaction Bogusky and his partners like to provoke. VW's U.S. dealer council supports the move. But consider some of the hostile reaction: Peter M. DeLorenzo, founder and publisher of influential Webzine Autoextremist.com Inc., called the decision to return to the Rabbit name "pure, unadulterated lunacy," and wrote that if U.S. VW marketing chief Kerri Martin and her agency weren't stopped, they would "destroy the brand in the U.S. once and for all." Steven Wilhite, former VW marketing chief and current global chief marketing officer at Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY ), pronounced the idea "brain-dead." Rance E. Crain, editor-in-chief of Advertising Age, editorialized that Crispin's first work for VW has been "so horrendously awful that [it] smooths the way for [VW's] quick and complete withdrawal [from the American market]." Says a habitually cool Bogusky, wearing a Kiss T-shirt and stabbing his fork in the air as he scarfed banana pancakes at Greenstreet's, a café near his Miami office: "I like that they are talking about the work. If they aren't talking, then your brand is dead.