The rumour mill is grinding away with the news that Volkswagen is preparing to drop its Das Auto slogan in the wake of its Dieselgate disaster…
VOLKSWAGEN WON’T ADMIT IT, but the Das Auto slogan is dead, according to a ‘spokesperson’ interviewed by Reuters overnight. Das Auto literally means The Car and apparently the global slogan is yet another one of the Dieselgate casualties.
According to a VW spokesperson, the Das Auto slogan will no longer be used alongside the company’s logo. “Wherever our logo appears in future, it will be backed by the new brand slogan ‘Volkswagen,'” the spokesman said. “The slogan will be rolled out in stages across the world.”
The Das Auto slogan was launched in 2007 and was intended to convey a sense of simplicity, but now, in the wake of Dieselgate it comes across as arrogant, according to many critics. The replacement slogan isn’t exactly a slogan in the same vein, and nor is it particularly clever.
The dropping of the slogan was apparently discussed at a closed door meeting of 2000 Volkswagen group managers following a drop in sales around the world.
VW brand boss, Herbert Deiss, who has come across from BMW has apparently described the Das Auto slogan as absolutist and suggesting that VW alone could redefine the car.
Volkswagen needed to show humility, one manager said, and the slogan ‘Das Auto’ was pretentious. The old slogan also failed to convey VW’s technological ambitions in areas such as electrically-powered vehicles, the manager said, requesting Reuters not report his name.
DAS auto – Designed to Avoid Standards, probablly that’s why.
OVERPRICED DAS FAIL