Sorry UPS, But Brown Reminds Me of Dog Poop

From a UPS press release: "Since 1920, the color brown has become closely associated with UPS as a result of the visibility of the company's global air and ground delivery fleet and its brown-clad drivers. Over the decades, UPS Brown has become one of the most recognized and trusted icons in corporate history. The new ad campaign builds on that recognition, using brown to communicate UPS's modern range of supply chain, technology and financial capabilities."

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.