Saturday, January 16, 2010



If you've never heard of Dash Courier Service, this advertisement tells you one thing about them: they have the guts to propose that they can out-perform one of the most well-known companies in the US.  Using the altered, familiar logo of their competitor (changing "UPS" to "Oops"), Dash's advertisement grab's the attention of the viewer and makes a statement: Choose dash over UPS for same day reliable delivery.  Why should we choose them?  Because Dash will not commit the competitor's errors. The implicit assumption is that the viewer has experienced problems in shipping with UPS,  it more specifically implies that the viewer has had problems with UPS's same-day delivery service. In the ad, UPS may be used as a specific competitor Dash claims to be able to out-do, however UPS is so prominent and iconic that Dash may as well be claiming they can out-do all the competition.

If I am a resident of either of the Carolinas and I had never seen or heard of Dash, I may not want to trust my valuable parcels to them.  However, to establish credibility and a relationship with the Carolina viewer, Dash seems to be saying: "We understand you. We've all been let down by our competitor.  Let us show you we're the best."  Their implicit assumption establishes common ground and therefore a relationship with the audience. Logically, no one wants those entrusted with their important and urgent parcels to ever say "oops".  The choice of the word "oops" is not only clever, but also minimizes the amount of care  and responsibility UPS/the competitor would have in the erroneous delivery of your parcel.

Conceptually, the advertisement is effective in communicating the intended message to the targeted audience.  Visually however, the cleverness of using UPS's logo could be misinterpreted, since it occupies the majority of the space and at glance it could be mistaken for an advertisement for UPS, ergo destroying the very purpose of Dash's marketing scheme and resulting in the cataclysmic end of the universe as we know it .