UPS 'Whiteboard' Ads Just Keep Getting Better

People said it couldn't be done, but UPS' new Whiteboard ad campaign continues to top itself. The hip, fresh series of ads featuring the professorial but daddish casually-dressed lecturer gets better with each successive spot. Not pretentious or condescending at all, the "I'll act like I'm your best buddy but really I'm just trying to steal your girlfriend" star of the series comes off as just a helpful guy answering all the questions about package delivery you never really had and would never have even cared about before. Plus he's got a nifty whiteboard and is a wizard with a dry-erase marker. It seems that UPS has stumbled upon the perfect combination.

After I saw the first ad I thought to myself, "Well they really blew it- there's no way they can top this. They are totally screwed." This was the "China to U.S." spot where he turns a truck into an airplane. It was brilliant. But then they hit us with the "Customer Service" ad in which an inanimate package relentlessly e-mails a floating head named Sally until she smiles. I couldn't believe it. There was absolutely no way it could get better than this. But then they upped the ante with "Distribution". In this magnificent display of sorcery, the whiteboard magician actually turns your warehouse into a truck and sends it on a distribution-fest to a dazzling array of store shelves. To top it all off, at the end he says "Hey, where'd your warehouse go?" like a mother hiding a toy from her infant child. Fantastic!

Again, I didn't think it could go anywhere but down from here. Again, I was wrong. In "Early Morning Delivery" this shaman of shipping literally turns back time in a superhuman display of other-worldly power. And if that isn't enough, he creates birds out of thin air like it's something he can just do whenever he feels like it. The next ad, "International Shipping", seems to imply that if you send something to a different country with UPS you automatically learn how to speak that country's official language. Now not only is this guy Superman, but he has taken on the qualities of the Holy Spirit, bestowing the gift of tongues upon all who believe in Brown. Next in the series is "One Driver", where the superhuman God of packaging is now creating UPS drivers in his own image and predicting the weather. This ad also, for the first time, reveals in its latent symbology that UPS is a major player in the "One World Government" conspiracy long feared by Christian Fundamentalists.

The next ad, "Reliability", is frightening, yet awesome as it is revealed that UPS package labels can operate as seer-stones for those powerful enough to practice the ancient art of scrying. Our favorite warlock, as expected, is well-practiced in this black art. UPS then drops the ball with "Visibility" and creates an ad that is pretty much worthless. They really should have started with this one and worked up to the others. "Your Small Business" is the grand finale. In this gem of a commercial the conjurer gleefully informs you that he is buying your company, laying off 3/4 of your employess and instituting a dress code. "It's not your small business," he cackles at the end. "It's your small business with UPS."

Amazing. Hopefully the genius-machine over at UPS keeps cranking these out because I cannot get enough of them! I want to learn more from this man. I want him to be my teacher. No, I want him to be my personal life coach. No, I want him to be my dad! Can you imagine getting the "birds and the bees" talk from this guy and his wondrous whiteboard? "It's not sex with a girl. It's sex with a girl and with everyone else she's ever slept with. Let's give you some protection here." How lucky his children must feel.