UPS Spots Could Get Lost in the Crowd

Advertiser: United Parcel Service

Agency: Ammirati Puris Lintas, New York

Challenge: Launch guaranteed ground delivery for business-to-business service.

The Ads: In a TV commercial, a narrator tells a success story in the same staccato style as other UPS ads. The spot opens at a company seminar, where “the management guru is talking about vision and thinking outside of the box.” The scene shifts to the shipping department, where the manager is charged with “thinking about the box.” So the shipping manager uses UPS’ new guaranteed ground delivery service and gets to conduct a seminar of his own. Print ads show empty highways that pass through a city or countryside. “Between millions of packages and their final destination lies but one road,” muses one ad. Each print ad plainly states that UPS is offering a money-back guarantee on business-to-business ground deliveries and provides an 800 number to call for more information.

Comment: The guaranteed ground delivery service, an industry first, is important to UPS, whose ground delivery service is at 4% below pre-strike (1997) levels. But because the TV spot is similar to fast-paced ads for other UPS services, the message may get lost. The pitch is clearer in understated print ads. $$