" It was the only thing to do after the mule died".

1972 Volkswagen Beetle After the Mule Died Print AD

It soon became apparent that people already knew what the Beetle looked like, and had looked like for 10 years, that it got great mileage, and that it cost less than anything from Detroit ($1545 new in 1959, still only $2000 in 1964). What they needed was a reason to identify with a nonconformist automobile. So DDB switched to ads containing very little copy, a picture of the car, a very short, startling headline in sans-serif type, and a lot of white space. One DDB headline was "Ugly is only skin-deep." Another simply read "Lemon." A third, turning one of Madison Avenue's favorite catchphrases of the day on its head, said "Think Small." Indeed, almost all of DDB's VW ads were the conspicuous antithesis of conventional auto advertising. "Where are they now?" showed 1949 models of six cars, five by companies which had gone out of business in the subsequent decade. In the 1960s, the focus of the campaign shifted to true stories of satisfied customers with unusual angles: the rural couple who bought a VW after the mule died. " It was the only thing to do after the mule died".