FedEx Will Quit Joking Around Overseas

NEW YORK — Federal Express Corp., whose recent ads featured the shipping executive who boasted about slipping off to play golf while his boss listened behind the door of a loo, has found that when going global humor doesn’t travel well.

The biggest U.S. air express company but so far a laggard overseas, FedEx has long been associated with funny advertising--from its fast talking pitchmen to the boss impersonating a secretary to check on a package. But now, the world’s largest express transportation company has changed its tune--and stilled its funny bone.

“Humor works better locally but doesn’t always carry over. We’ve found that to tell our global story we’re better focusing on the brand imagery, and fact that FedEx empowers customers in the global economy,” said Ira Bahr, senior vice president and worldwide account director at Omnicom Group’s BBDO, the ad agency for Federal Express since 1989. “We’ve created a powerful and persuasive message that is very brand differentiating and very strategic.”

The six commercials so far--with a dozen more to come--focus on entrepreneurs doing business all over the world because of FedEx’s delivery and warehousing inventory services. FedEx plans to spend about $45 million on the campaign.

In one spot, a publisher in Wales packs pop-up books that arrive to excite students in classrooms in Thailand and England and a dressmaker in Milan finds herself--through her creations--at a wedding in Japan. “How did such ordinary people come by such extraordinary powers?” asks the narrator, actress Linda Hunt. “Believe it or not, all it took was the wave of a wand.”

In another spot, a factory appears bare and out of business, until the FedEx truck arrives with its “just in time” inventory.

Each spot ends with a globe spinning and the tagline, “The way the world works.”

The campaign, with minor modifications, is expected to run in 20 countries. It’s the company’s first global ad campaign and the first time FedEx hasn’t customized its advertising to different parts of the world.

“The most important message we have to deliver is that we’ve become a global company,” said David Schonfeld, FedEx’s vice president of marketing. “The global theme supersedes specific messages of the past. Our humorous ads have accomplished the objectives set for them, but no company can afford to leave its ad objectives untouched if the environment has changed.”

FedEx, which ships more than 2.5 million items in 211 countries each working day, is half the size of United Parcel Service. In 1995, UPS had revenue of $21 billion on a volume of 3.1 billion packages.

But in the express business, FedEx dominates. According to Colography Group in Marietta, Ga., it has around a 45% share followed by UPS with 27%, Airborne Express with 15% and the U.S. Postal Service with 5%. All other services account for about 8%.