• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, March 27, 2006

DHL had high hopes for a $150 million ad campaign it launched in mid-2004. The delivery service wanted to raise awareness for its new refashioned brand ID, while laying the groundwork for a significant challenge to U.S. market leaders UPS and FedEx.

"Very soon DHL will be as familiar a presence in the U.S. as we are in more than 220 other countries and territories worldwide," DHL's stateside marketing chief said at the time.

What happened could be an interesting case study on the value of advertising. The brand's yellow and red color scheme appears to have entered the collective intuition, accomplishing mission one. A consumer survey--certainly a multiple-choice test--would probably show that the vast majority of people in its target identify those hues with DHL, perhaps even on a level comparable to UPS' brown and FedEx's purple and orange. DHL's creative tack--juxtaposing its yellow-and-red trucks with its competitors' in television spots--probably helped. By drawing attention to the other guys' images, it reinforced its own and piggybacked off the millions UPS had spent on its "What can brown do for you?" initiative. Indeed, one of the wittiest aspects of DHL's campaign was an outdoor ad that read: "Yellow. It's the new Brown."

But viewed from another angle, DHL's campaign failed to deliver. The service--which took on its current form when DHL acquired Airborne in 2003--has struggled mightily to make inroads in what it called the "UPS/FedEx duopoly." The company's 2005 annual report pulled no punches, with the bold statement that the business "fell short of our expectations." In February, the company had to revise projections of break-even status by the end of this year. And last week, according to Bloomberg, a London-based analyst for ING wrote: "It is obvious that some of FedEx's and UPS's success has been at the expense of DHL Americas, which is set to underwhelm for yet another year in 2006." (DHL is part of German postal service Deutsche Post World Net, which is seeking a foothold in the U.S. to bolster its global network.)

DHL, however, is still committed to trying to overwhelm through marketing, although it's switching tactics a bit. A new brand campaign launching today tries to give DHL employees a similar place in peoples' hearts to the UPS men in brown. The company melds its employees' "can-do" attitude with their "know-how" and labels its work force "the do-how people." The campaign highlights certain individuals, including one DHLer who made sure the equipment arrived for the shooting of the coming film "Mission Impossible III."

Speaking of shooting, the campaign has also involved murder. DHL employed brand integration in the March 19 episode of NBC's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" (evaluated and ranked via research firm iTVX as one of the five most effective product placements last week). At the start of the episode, a DHL "do-how" deliveryman arrives at a home--package in tow--where detectives are investigating a female resident's murder. The DHL colors and logo are visible on the deliveryman's jacket and his truck, which is shown parked out front and then pulling away. The cameras also follow the package--which makes it to the right address, although addressed to the wrong person--into the hands of Detective Mike Logan (played by Chris Noth).

"Can-do" or "do-how" aside, the product placement works because DHL shows up where a viewer would expect UPS. (Fortunately for DHL, the murder scene isn't overly gory and, in "Law & Order" fashion, the focus quickly shifts to the investigation.) DHL is laboring to persuade consumers to consider it as an option for everyday shipping. In the episode, a DHL truck is placed in a typical suburban neighborhood, where DHL hopes more and more customers will give it a shot. The brand becomes part of the landscape, which is exactly where it wants to be.

The product placement won't give DHL a defining moment like the movie "Cast Away" did for FedEx, but it may persuade some new customers to cast their lot with the self-proclaimed "third competitor." That's something the company could use a lot of.