BLOBS CONQUERING THE WORLD

Sometimes the ideas that arise from an urgent need are the best. Do you need an example?

We head back to fall 1990: the presentation of the ABT Audi Coupé C5 was just some days ahead – this was the very first wide body conversion of the Kempten-based vehicle customizers. The car was supposed to be presented at the Essen Motor Show, which was why it was painted in an appropriate color: tweety-yellow. But something was missing, some kind of contrast for the gaudy yellow as an additional eye-catcher. Hans-Jürgen Abt grabbed the phone and dialed the number of Sven Kusterer, who was and still is the CEO of Kusterer Advertising Technology in Kempten and also a good friend and partner of the “Äbte”. They started to look for a solution together. Kusterer split the ABT logo into three pieces: purple, petrol and mint. The first optimization was done.

You think that’s enough for a typical nineties look? That’s far wrong! Because after that, the emergency-idea came into play. Kusterer had a blob inside his company’s logo back in the day. He came up with the idea of printing such a blob large-sized and putting it onto the car as a foil. Right on the next day there was tweety-yellow colored ABT Audi Coupé C5 with some over-dimensional blobs that somehow reminded one of colorful bird’s faeces. Sven Kusterer’s phone rang again, it’s Hans-Jürgen Abt again. Kuster already was afraid of his reaction but something completely unexpected happened: The visitors of the Essen Motor Show absolutely LOVE the lamination. “Hans-Jürgen called from Essen asking if I was able to produce some more blobs and bring them over as fast as possible”, Kusterer says. After that, he spends the following months doing nothing else but producing and cutting blobs in two different sizes. He even had to purchase two more production plants while more than 100 000 stickers are produced. The Bavarian Broadcasting Channel even produced a documentary about the “blob-mania”. The blobs also made it to the show “Wetten dass…?” with Thomas Gottschalk. But if you thought that this mid-nineties hype was finally over, you were wrong. The blobs came back in 2010 already – on top of the ABT A1.