Nobody bats an eye at vans and buses bearing adverts, but the idea of a private car as a mobile billboard seems absurd - yet in the 1970s this was very much a thing.
The idea came to youth-focused marketing man Charles E Bird in 1971. Visiting San Diego University to give a lecture, he spotted among the many Volkswagen Beetles on campus one adorned with flower stickers. 'Bugs' were popular with cash-strapped young Americans, while the student demographic was lucrative but often proved elusive to advertisers, so the potential for a symbiotic situation was obvious.
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