Reverse Engineering a Classic Advertisement
By the height of the American muscle car era, the automobile had secured its place as a public show of wealth, prosperity, power, and ego. This ad for the 1969 Super Bee appealed to each of these facets. Even today, this muscle car remains on of the most admired and sought after for collectors and restorers.
Color
Color is essential in automotive advertising. Dodge has always created custom colors specifically engineered to compliment the body design and power of their most powerful muscle cars. In this advertisement, they went with what we can now call the classic “Super Bee Yellow,” and it leaves a lasting impression. It is effective in it’s use of color, as the target audience will likely wonder if they are seeing the same car on the street now as they did while reading the magazine earlier.
Contrast
Closely tied to color is contrast. Obviously, there is contrast between the car and the road, but more important to the target audience is the contrast on the Super Bee itself. On the hood are two dark, commanding scoops, instantly telling you that this car has power. The front end is wide and defined by the not only the black grill, but also the shine of precisely placed chrome. Overall, this design was purely for showing of the power of the engine and to look good, and safety was a secondary concern.
Alignment
There is text on this advertisement, even though the image without text could have easily been sold as a poster. Even thought it may seem weird that the heights of each block of text are different, the alignment is important to keeping the visual appeal and aesthetic of the ad. Essentially, there are four columns of text, and most of the text is too small to read accidentally. This actually served the purpose of CMC very well. This car was meant to be a status symbol. Seeing the image, you would instantly know if you could afford it or not. If not, the only thing the company needed you to remember was that it was a Dodge Super Bee. If you were the target demographic, you could get into the smaller paragraphs and learn of the options and capabilities of the muscle car.
How They Got It Right
The use and mastery of basic advertising principles from the Dodge / CMC ad department have lead to the creation of this classic advertisement for this classic car. It effectively catches attention, holds it, and make it last. Not every campaign can have such an attractive subject matter, but it shows how knowing principles of design can avoid detracting from something that already speaks for itself.
A copy of the image used can be found at: https://www.lhmopars.com/MOPAR_Ads/69beead2.html
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