Sunday evening musings: Extending a campaign element to the real world

Posted by Jaan on October 25th, 2009 | Add your comment

You know those UPS whiteboard commercials?

What if UPS extended the core element of the whiteboard campaign – the idea of simple explanations drawn on whiteboards – to the way the company interacted with their customers?

Instead of just using the whiteboard doodling as a way to convey their message, UPS could used it to collect feedback from customers.

Imagine if I could sketch my concern about UPS on a web-based whiteboard (at, say, UPS.com/yourwhiteboard). It would force me to be very clear about what I wanted to say, which would benefit me (my feedback would be thought through) as well as UPS (instead of reading a long written rant they would understand my concern more or less through a quick glance).

(My nagging issue is that the latest UPS Store pickup in my corner of San Francisco is far too early at 5 pm. Here’s what it might look like on a whiteboard.)

UPS might even encourage people within large client organisations to lead whiteboarding teams to hash out ongoing feedback and submit it to the UPS customer services team. These whiteboards could be used in future campaigns when Big Brown shows how it resolved customer problems.

Ok, enough with Sunday evening musings. Time for tea!

What other companies could extend campaign elements as part of their interactions? Let me know on Twitter where I am @orvet or in the comments.