USPS aims to leave yesterday’s image behind
The United States Postal Service is introducing “Today’s Mail,” which highlights improvements in services and technology.
The campaign, getting under way this week, offers the theme “Today’s Mail” as a way to refer to the post office. The phrase, accompanied by the Postal Service’s familiar stylized eagle logo, appears as the closing signature in print, online and direct-mail advertisements in place of the words “United States Postal Service.”
The campaign is being produced by Campbell-Ewald in Warren, Mich., part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, which has been the lead creative agency for the Postal Service since July 2002. The Postal Service spends USPS 30 million to USPS 35 million each year on advertising.
Although the campaign refers to the Postal Service as “Today’s Mail,” the Postal Service is not changing its official name, which it adopted in 1971.
Executives at the Postal Service and Campbell-Ewald describe the theme as an invitation to consider the post office in a new light, reflecting improvements in service and technology, like the Postal Service Web site (usps.com).
“Our brand is changing, but customers were not viewing us as the more contemporary and competitive organization we are,” said Rod DeVar, manager for advertising and promotion at the Postal Service in Washington.
“We’ve kept coming out with new services to better serve customers,” he added, “but when we’re talking to them, they say, ‘I didn’t know that’ or ‘I never would have expected that from the Postal Service.’”
Experts in brand and corporate identity offered generally positive comments about “Today’s Mail,” with some notable caveats.
“The word ‘mail’ is an extremely powerful word,” said Dean Crutchfield, senior vice president for marketing at Wolff Olins in New York, part of the Omnicom Group. “We all want a letter from a friend, a birthday card, a Christmas card, a check, a love letter.
“But the dominant amount of mail we get is junk mail and bills,” he added. “They have to be careful that ‘Today’s Mail’ is not misconstrued as the bills and the junk.”
Mr. Crutchfield praised the ability of the theme to “broaden the definition of what the Postal Service does as a business, particularly with all the competition encroaching on its turf.” That was a reference to companies like DHL, FedEx and U.P.S., not to mention the myriad electronic rivals like e-mail messages and instant messaging.
Marc E. Babej, president of Reason Inc. in New York, said the adoption of the phrase “Today’s Mail” could help the Postal Service because “it makes a commitment to be up to date and asks people to rethink its technologies and capabilities.”
“But it calls for a demonstration of the benefits,” he added, rather than generalities.
The initial ads in the campaign try to offer tangible examples of how “Today’s Mail” is not your father’s post office, to borrow from the “New generation of Olds” theme for Oldsmobile.
For instance, an ad for “Today’s Mail” that appeared yesterday in USA Today declared that “Today you will” be able to perform a lengthy list of tasks by going to a section of the Postal Service Web site (usps.com/household).
The services the ad highlights include shipping a package from your kitchen, creating customized postage stamps of your child’s artwork and filing a change of address while sitting in a coffee shop.
Ads for the Christmas season, which carry headlines like “Today’s Holidays Need Today’s Mail,” are also focused on specific services like automated postal centers and free “eco-friendly” packaging in which to mail gifts.
The campaign is the first time in about a decade that the Postal Service has used a theme in its ads.
In addition to print and online ads, the Postal Service will announce the new theme in postcards that it will send to 146 million addresses.
