Insight
No one really loves a logistics company, but you have to trust them with things you do love.
When UPS wanted to break into Greater China, Maxus China knew that it needed to convince businessmen that they could trust a foreign, and by default less trustworthy, company to help grow their business and expand overseas.
But the agency found that just telling them that UPS was trustworthy wouldn’t be enough, it had to prove that it was trustworthy.
So, it searched for a story to bring to life and prove how much UPS cares.
Strategy
UPS showed them that they’d already trusted the brand with the thing that China loves most, and that it hadn’t let them down.
Maxus told the story of how one nation trusted another with its most treasured national possession. The agency used that wonderful act of trust to get people to take notice of UPS, the carrier that lovingly and carefully packaged and transported the Terracotta Warriors around the world.
Execution
The campaign started in Tier 1 city airports, a key environment for speaking with UPS’s travelling business audience.
There it built an exciting and immersive ambient experience - miniature museums that told the story of the Warriors overseas journey.
A full-sized terracotta warrior in its real life packing case was put on display so people could see how much care had been taken of it on that journey.
A 3D interactive warrior hologram was installed on-site so people could learn more.
A real life General Qin walked the airport, boarded planes and sat with travellers to tell the story, swapping cards with businessmen.
UPS built content together with National Geographic Magazine, placed ads in magazines and on airport LCDs and told the story online via banners and video.
Results
The campaign successfully enhanced consumers’ perception of UPS by 40%+, improving preference by 70%. It also drove a massive revenue increase of 22%, demonstrating that people were ready to put their trust in UPS - all by successfully proving that UPS would care about each and every parcels’ journey, national treasure or not, so that they didn’t have to.