Nearly three years ago, shipping giant UPS launched its “whiteboard guy” campaign. The guy—with distractingly long hair—demonstrates various features of UPS’s services by drawing on a board with a brown marker. (Perhaps creative inspiration came from FOX television’s hit hospital series, House M.D., whose main character played by actor Hugh Laurie uses a whiteboard to great effect.)
The “guy” is no actor but Andy Azula, the creative director at the Martin Agency in Richmond, Virginia. According to Azula, he pitched the idea to the client with himself at the whiteboard. “[UPS] liked the idea and went to work to try to find someone to talk and draw like I did in the demo.” When UPS left the decision to consumers in a focus group, they picked Azula.
UPS announced that New York’s Ogilvy & Mather has since taken over the account, not due to lack of success, however. According to spokesman Norman Black, UPS wants an agency with global offices, and the Martin Agency only maintains U.S. operations. Martin has handled the UPS account since 2001 and is responsible for its “What Can Brown Do For You” tagline. (This bizarre tagline could be fodder for a blog post of its own.) The whiteboard tv spots were widely spoofed on YouTube, and, as the sincerest form of flattery, on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”
This story has an ironic musical footnote. The soundtrack for the tv campaign is the instrumental intro of the song, “Such Great Heights,” recorded by electronic indie pop band The Postal Service. The group is so named because its two members—Jimmy Tamborello and Ben Gibbard—produced much of its songs by collaborating remotely via the United States Postal Service. (Not by UPS, apparently).