Helmut Krone

From our system/corporate lecture, a stand out was the Volkswagen advertisements shown to us. I decided to look more into the ads and learnt about Helmut Krone.

(History of Graphic Design, 2018)

Helmut Krone was an art director who worked for DDB for over 30 years in the mid 1900’s. He created the famous and highly praised 1960 Volkswagen campaign's ‘Lemon’ and ‘Think Small’. He won many awards and his work was voted as the number one campaign of all time in 1999. (History of Graphic Design, no date) He never designed logo’s and often didn’t even use one in his work but made his mark by using typeface as his branding. He said "I've spent my whole life fighting logos, logos say 'I am an ad. Turn the page.'" (Bierut. M, 2006)

(Bierut, 2006)

Krone’s Avis ad came after the success of his Volkswagen ad which used a layout called “old JWT No.1” which was “two-thirds image above, centred headline, three columns of body copy below.” (Bierut. M, 2006) His Avis ad did a 360 and made the text the focal point of the ad rather than the images he used, forcing consumers to read what was made to be read. He said about the ad that he “liked the fact that it was so unautomotive. Rather it was bookish, literate." (Bierut. M, 2006)

The Avis ad uses self-mockery as it’s selling point, calling themselves “No.2” and goes on to state reasons why they’re just not No.1 but can still give their all. Seeing this ad came as a shock to me as companies tend not to be so brutally honest and it could be seen as a way of humanising the brand and Krone. This led me to search to see if any other companies had the guts to be honest about their shortcomings and found that Domino’s pizza has.

(Bierut, 2006)

Domino’s had been failing as a pizzeria and had a lot of people leave negative reviews about them online. (Gallegos. J.A., 2017) So, in 2009, Domino’s created an Ad that talks about how successful the brand was when they first began but begins to introduce these real-life reviews as well as real employees who agreed that their pizza tastes like 'cardboard' and that they needed to change. (Domino’s Pizza, 2009) The ad was a success as it gave consumers a reason to pity Domino’s and give them another chance after seeing them admit that they're failing, and their sales increased significantly. (Gallegos. J.A., 2017)

History of Graphic Design, (no date), Image of Helmut Krone. [Online] Available at: http://www.historygraphicdesign.com/the-age-of-information/the-new-york-school/1044-helmut-krone (Accessed: 21/10/18)

History of Graphic Design, (no date), Helmut Krone. Available at: http://www.historygraphicdesign.com/the-age-of-information/the-new-york-school/1044-helmut-krone (Accessed: 21/10/18)

Bierut. M, (2006), Helmut Krone, Period. Available at: https://designobserver.com/feature/helmut-krone-period/4657 (Accessed: 21/10/18)

Bierut. M, (2006), Print advertisement for Volkswagen. [Online] Available at: https://designobserver.com/feature/helmut-krone-period/4657 (Accessed: 21/10/18)

Bierut. M, (2006), Print advertisement for Avis. [Online] Available at: https://designobserver.com/feature/helmut-krone-period/4657 (Accessed: 21/10/18)

Gallegos. J.A., (2017), How Self-Deprecating Advertising Creates More Meaningful Consumer-Brand Connections. Available at: https://www.tintup.com/blog/self-deprecating-advertising-creates-meaningful-consumer-brand-connections/ (Accessed: 21/10/18)

Domino’s Pizza, (2009), Domino's® Pizza Turnaround. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH5R56jILag (Accessed: 18/11/2018)