DHL and Ogilvy in revolutionary TV campaign addressing time-pressure

DHL's award-winning TV campaign "Because Time Matters" has now reached Sweden. In three weeks' time, DHL advertising spots will be going out at peak times on a number of channels.

The agency behind the campaign is Ogilvy Sweden, which worked with DHL Express to design the campaign in Brussels, cast actors in the USA and finally filmed in Sweden.

DHL Express (Sweden) is using TV as a medium to raise awareness among Swedes that shipments reaching their intended destination before lunch should be seen as a matter of course.

DHL is using humorous TV advertising

"We are using humorous TV advertising to show how we are becoming more and more concerned with time and that rapid transport is a smart way of saving time. In this way, we hope that the Express 12:00 service will enter people's consciousness and that they will realize DHL can cover just about any place in Europe before noon", says Ulf Gejhammar, Sales and Marketing Director for DHL Express in Sweden.

In an intensive three-week period, DHL Express will be running a regular trio of TV ads: "The Meeting", "Yes, Yes, Yes" and "I Totally Agree". These will go out on TV4, Kanal 5, TV6 and TV8, and also over the Internet at DI.se and on Transportnet. The common denominator in all the films is the hard-pressed Greg, who is always looking for new ways to save time.

The advertising agency Ogilvy is behind the campaign.
"It is a classic business-to-business assignment, but what makes this campaign special is that we designed it together with DHL Express in Brussels, cast the actors in the USA and found a Broadway star for the main role. Then the filming itself took place in Sweden with both American and Swedish actors", says Martin Agebrandt, European manager for the campaign at Ogilvy Sweden.

A special web page has been produced to support the campaign

Alongside TV advertising and banners, a special web page has been produced to support the campaign for Express 12:00: www.dhltime.se. This also aims to show how important it is to save time and to make people aware of this. Greg tries everything, from shrinking long texts to the minimum to cracking and bending charge meters in half.

"The 'Greg' campaign was previously nominated for the Swedish 'Golden Egg' award in the film category, and it was also selected as campaign of the month in the magazine 'Resumé'. And you need to remember that it has gained all this attention before the campaign has even run in Sweden", says Agebrandt.

DHL has tested the campaign on focus groups in places like London and Paris, and it has been very well received.

"I think this slightly ironic but subtle humor will also go down well in Sweden. It feels really cool to be doing TV advertising when you consider that it is all of four years since we ran a major TV campaign in Sweden", says DHL Express advertising manager Kalle Eliasson, one of the originators of the campaign.