When shipping giant Federal Express opened for business on April 17, 1973, it delivered 186 packages to 25 cities in one day. And while the company did not turn a profit until ’75, FedEx promptly started advertising in ’74 on a budget of $150,000. Its selling point: a revolutionary new concept in shipping—a fleet of airplanes that only carried packages. As FedEx tells the story, after the first commercial aired, the package count rose from 3,000 pieces a night to an average of 10,000 pieces.
Today, FedEx documents 3.3 million packages a night, and is one of the leaders in the shipping business. With this kind of ubiquity, FedEx doesn’t need to advertise to let the consumer know what it offers, yet the company continues to embrace advertising in a way that makes its agency of 13 years, BBDO New York, happy to deliver.
Since ’89, BBDO has been responsible for creating humorous, sometimes irreverent and always memorable ads for the express shipper. It’s a relationship that’s proven mutually beneficial—while FedEx has grown into a multi-layered global giant, BBDO has had the opportunity to produce award-winning commercials for a company that’s willing to take a few risks. Consider such classics as "Action Figures," directed by Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/ international hungry man, wherein two boys play with G.I. Joe-like dolls that are dressed in women’s clothing because of a shipping snafu. Or the controversial "Oz," helmed by Joe Pytka of PYTKA, Venice, Calif., where a FedEx truck drops in on a scene from The Wizard of Oz to deliver helium to the Lollypop Guild, in an effort to stave off their deepening voices. (The spot was pulled shortly after it aired during the ’00 Super Bowl because of protests from anti-inhalant groups.)
Expanded service
In ’01, FedEx found itself back in a square-one advertising scenario. While it enjoyed worldwide recognition as the fastest overnight shipper, it had been building up several other products—such as FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery—that needed more visibility. In short, FedEx wanted to let the consumer know that it was more than just an overnight shipping company.
BBDO answered the call with a campaign called "Business Legends," which features two small-business workers (Steve and Joe, played by the actors Steve Carell and Joe Narcisso, respectively) chatting in the office about legendary stories in package delivery. The two men have a Laurel and Hardy kind of relationship—Steve is the know-it-all, while Joe almost always misses the point. Through their comic interaction and quick-paced dialogue, the spots were able to convey a lot of information about FedEx’s variety of products in an entertaining way. Not only that, by changing the tone of the company’s advertising, the campaign let people know that this was a new FedEx.
The first five :30s, directed by Pytka, broke in October ’01. The ads generally focused on what seemed to be impromptu water-cooler banter that would open with a non sequitur from Joe, followed up by a high-drama re-telling of a crazy shipping story from his intense workmate, Steve. In each story, FedEx saves the day. It’s a formula that starts with the banal and leads to the story we’re supposed to hear.
For instance, "She Wore White" opens with Steve and Joe sitting in an office, talking about a wedding. The first words we hear are "She wore white?" accompanied by flashback footage of a wedding and an off-the-cuff remark about the bride’s questionable chastity. But the whole point to the story is that the father-in-law hires the groom to run the mismanaged shipping department of the family business. The young man turns the business around with FedEx Ground and subsequently basks in the glory of knowing who’s boss. The spot ends with the tagline, "Need reliable, affordable ground shipping? Don’t worry, there’s a FedEx for that."
The first round of spots was so successful that FedEx gave the go-ahead to do another round of "Business Legends" spots, which broke this fall. But this time BBDO needed to up the ante. With the relationship between the Steve and Joe characters already established, BBDO had to find a way to keep the campaign interesting while using the same formula.
"It wasn’t really about trying to top ourselves, it was more about having the visuals be more fun to watch this time around," explains Gerry Graf, executive VP/executive creative director at BBDO, who has had creative charge of both "Business Legends" campaigns.
Graf is something of a legend himself. He joined BBDO New York in ’94, left for Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, San Francisco, in ’97 and returned to BBDO in ’99 as an executive creative director. He is admittedly drawn to humor-based advertising, as evidenced by his work on Snickers’ "Not going anywhere for a while? Grab a Snickers" campaign, which he conceived with then-partner David Gray during his first stint at BBDO. These days, Graf works on such accounts as Red Stripe, Guinness and Harp Lager, but he dedicates much of his time to FedEx.
Outside the box
With these latest commercials—"Car Show," "Elevator," "Grilla," "Joe’s FedEx Guy," "Otoscope" and "Robocat"—Graf’s answer to visual excitement was to take the guys out of the office. He also called on Buckley to direct the campaign. "The tough part about directing these spots is working with the way these characters speak to each other, and Buckley is great at doing that," says Graf.
According to Elise Greiche, a senior producer at BBDO who produced the second round of the "Business Legends" package, the director "really encouraged the main characters to tap into the familiarity they had with each other from the first campaign." (Regina Ebel, BBDO’s executive VP/director of television production, and senior producer Stacey Suplizio handled producing duties on the first outing of the campaign.)
All the spots in this latest campaign are layered with some level of subtle humor or irony that one might not catch on first viewing. In "Robocat," two men discuss a robotic cat that’s the latest craze in Japan while waiting on a commuter rail platform. Joe asks Steve if Robocat coughs up Robo hairballs. Steve replies, "It’s metal, but that’s not the point." He then launches into a story accompanied by flashback footage about a Japanese robotic cat whose signature move is to lick its metal paw. Robocat’s main operations are in Tokyo, but the chips that power the metallic feline are only manufactured in Palo Alto, Calif. By shipping the chips with FedEx International’s time-definite, reliable service to Tokyo, Robocat becomes an overnight sensation, a fact that is underscored by an over-the-top commercial featuring people all over Japan licking their hands like Robocat.
Cut back to the two men standing on the train platform. Joe has jelly doughnut powder all over his face and he fails to wipe it off with the same Robocat paw-licking gesture seen moments before. It is an unconscious move on the part of Joe, but it works as a visual nugget of humor for the viewer. It’s small moments like these that Buckley was instrumental in providing.
"[Buckley] came up with stuff like, ‘If you have the largest grill in the world, why not cook a huge mackerel in a parking lot?’" recalls Graf, referring to "Grilla." "And ‘if you’re the biggest Japanese manufacturer in the world you’d have this massive, Japanese-style commercial.’ "
Consider "Elevator," which is a story about a group of claustrophobic people who are facing their fears by cramming into an elevator. As Steve relays this story to Joe, the two are huffing up several flights of stairs. In "Grilla," the men talk about a barbecue grill manufacturer who introduces a new model that’s so big it puts all others to shame. As the spot opens, Steve and Joe stand on a street corner right next to a food vendor with flames rising from his grill.
According to Graf, this latest campaign will run into next year, but there are no solid plans for another round. In the past, FedEx has appeared during the Super Bowl, but no plans for the ’03 telecast could be confirmed at press time. "There’s definitely talk, but we don’t know yet," says Graf.
