A favorite accounting of the brilliant 1960s ad campaign for VW of America by Doyle Dane Bernbach [DDB]. The ads were ground-breaking in their subversion of the standard advertising practice - *especially* in the automotive realm - of magic hyperbole.
The budding agency used understatement both in their humor and in their design unorthodoxy, taking a view-shifting approach to selling something fairly new to the American market - modest, reliable imported German cars.
The campaign was not only wildly successful at selling Volkswagens, it put DDB in the top tier of American ad agencies.