Essay
Crisis Advisory Report Volkswagen
Volkswagen crisis after racist ad in 2020
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Crisis advisory reportOpen the front door and you will most likely see a car with a Volkswagen logo
somewhere on your street. Look at people within the age range of 18 and 25, at least half of them
will drive a Volkswagen Polo. Its history goes far back. May 28, 1937, was the day that a new
auto-mobile was founded, which was then owned by the government. This government was
controlled by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. The Nazi Party was a far-right political party,
which focused on being against many things such as anti-communist and anti-capitalist. Because
of this, Volkswagen was a controversial car brand back then. The translation of Volkswagen in
German is “people’s car” with the intention of making this product attractive to every German
citizen. However, this joy did not last long. Shortly after introducing “the people’s car”, World
War 2 started in 1939. This War was known for its mass production of weapons, resulting in a
lack of car production. For the next 5 years, car production had to make way for producing war
resources.
In 1945, when World War 2 ended, Germany was divided into 2 parts. This is also known
as diversion, which is the opposition of converging. West Germany, also known as
Bundesrepublik Deutschland, combined land previously owned by France, the United Kingdom,
and the United States. Therefore, BRD showed many signs of capitalism. East Germany, known
as Deutsche Demokratische Republik, used to be part of the Soviet Union and was very
communist. It soon became clear that the circumstances in BRD were much better than in the
east. For this reason, the control of Volkswagen was moved to west-Germany. The BRD
government became the owner of the company and made important decisions. The situation
stayed like this until 1960 when Volkswagen got denationalized. The company became public
property again, meaning that anyone could buy and drive a Volkswagen if they wanted to.
Because it was now easier for people to buy a Volkswagen, the success started growing after
1960. It has been growing for the last 60 years and we only expect them to improve and grow
even more in the future. Their current success is clearly visible: they sell approximately 9 million
cars per year and have a revenue of 250 billion euros making it the most successful and sprightly
operating car brand in Germany. People might wonder where their car came from, the produced
parts, and where the car was put together. This will always be a mystery at Volkswagen because
they manufacture their cars in 100 different factories divided over 5 continents. This means that
, your car could be produced in Brazil, Spain, and even the United States. Despite this, the looks
and functioning of these cars are not differentiated by their location of production. Their biggest
factory is located in Wolfsburg, Germany which is where Volkswagen started. Besides being the
biggest location, it is also the one producing their most famous car which is the Volkswagen
Golf.
To maintain this status and in order to keep the company running, it needs to have
qualified employees. Besides the quality, the quantity of these employees is important as well.
This is clearly visible, Volkswagen stated in its 2021 report that they have approximately 670
thousand employees all over the world. This was a 1.5 percent increase from 2020 (660,000).
These people have different functions such as mechanic, sales manager, pr manager, and
engineer. It has become clear that Volkswagen knows what to do when producing their cars. The
promotion of these cars and their marketing in general has not always been perfect. A perfect
example of this was a crisis in the spring/summer of 2020 due to a problematic advertisement.
This was a short video, roughly 10 seconds, promoting their new Golf 8. The video was posted
on their German Instagram account and reposted multiple times on other platforms (Riley &
Ziady, 2020). However, this video was not received in the way Volkswagen might have hoped.
To understand the public’s reaction, it is important to look closely at the advertisement and
analyze what is happening. The short video shows a black man being moved around a car by a
pair of white hands. This could be seen as a reference to back in the day when black people used
to be under the control of white people, the white Europeans used to have power over African
American slaves. Besides, we can see that the white hand flicks the black man into a café
containing a sign that says “petit colon”. Despite it being an actual café in Argentina, most
people connect it with the French language. The French translation for this would be “little
settler/colonist”. This translation combined with the gestures would refer to black being ‘pushed’
into slavery happening between 1500 and 1800. Lastly, the letters to the words ‘der neue Golf’
happen to appear in such a way that when pausing the video, they form the n-word in English.
All three aspects are part of the racist and colonialist history that many black people and their
ancestors have suffered. These allegations together with the company’s Nazi background caused
troves of backlash. Rightfully so, the company received multiple complaints. Some call the
advertisement ‘tasteless and deeply racist, so deeply that one has no idea where to start’ (Staff,
2020). After this criticism, the public hoped that action would be taken. Unfortunately, many of
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