Those UPS “whiteboard” ads
Eric Gordon passed along a piece in Slate today, Back to the Drawing Board, about what I think are those very good UPS ads running on TV, online and in print. I think a lot of the campaign. It’s fresh and interesting. (The Slate piece has links to many of the spots in the campaign.)
One discovery from the article, however, caught my eye. Seems the “talent” in the spots is actually the art director who helped create them. “This particular nonperformer—the floppy-haired fellow standing at the whiteboard—is named Andy Azula…. Azula conceived of these ads as a refreshing change from typical shipping spots, which show trucks and package handlers and businesspeople meeting deadlines. To give UPS a sense of what he planned, he filmed sample spots with himself as the whiteboard guy and with co-workers from his ad agency behind the camera. He never imagined he’d appear in the final versions, but when UPS tested various other actors (and kept Azula in the mix), focus groups consistently picked him as their favorite.”We have an unwritten - but strongly encouraged - policy at Burris about appearing in the work we do for our clients. That includes us serving as “extras” on photo shoots and the like. Why? Because it’s not what we do. We’re not models or actors. And we firmly believe that you get creative people to do creative, talent to be, uh, talent.
Azula and these spots present a notable exception, as did Hal Riney, who for years was the voice for many of the TV and radio spots he and his agency wrote.