Volkswagen led with the objection

Almost all of the page is empty. The Beetle sits small in the top corner, shot plainly, and underneath it: Think small. DDB’s layout — Helmut Krone on art direction, Julian Koenig writing — did the opposite of everything Detroit was doing, which at the time meant enormous cars photographed from below to look even more enormous.

The copy concedes constantly. The car is little. It is not beautiful. It uses less petrol, needs less insurance, and does not need replacing every year. A later ad in the same campaign simply said Lemon over a photo of a Beetle that had failed inspection — the point being that the inspector rejected it, so you never saw it.

Why it worked

Naming the objection before the reader does removes its power and buys you credibility for everything after it. The reader has already noticed the car is small. Pretending otherwise starts the relationship with a lie; agreeing starts it with candour, and candour is what makes the following claims land.