Sorry UPS, But Brown Reminds Me of Dog Poop

I've always been confused by UPS's tagline, too, but was too ashamed to voice my apprehension. I mean, clearly, they realized that a whole lot of people think of excrement when they ask in their ads, "What can brown do for you?", right? I can only assume that focus groups recognized this, but the decision-makers at UPS felt that it wasn't enough of a impediment for the re-branding effort.

The thing is, UPS was a really recognizeable brand. My guess is that millions were spent on this re-branding stupid decision.

Al Ries wrote a good column on this topic in Ad Age http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=39519 this week (Subscription required.)

Talking about Tyson's slogan "What your family deserves," he said : "It's all hammer and no nail. It's all thunder and lightning and no rain. Why spend $40 million on an advertising program and not leave an idea in the prospect's mind?"

And here we have UPS leaving us thinking of dog poop. Go figure.