Packaging the personal

The company handed this brief to Cape agency TBWA\Fusion's Creative Director, Sanjai Mistry, who says the agency's challenge was to disrupt conventional courier services advertising, which tends to focus on capability and functionality. According to Mistry, huge freight networks and cutting edge operational capabilities mean very little when individual consumers use a courier.

Speed Services Couriers senior manager (marketing) Vincent Ramphenyane says: "Obviously, we also wanted to connect with the corporate market in a completely different way to that of our competitors. Our commitment to our customers is that we will take care of the delivery of their packages.

"From important business documents to deeply personal love letters, people want to know their packages are in safe hands. Consumers want to know that the courier service is going to deliver all that functionality, but also look after their delivery as they would themselves."

This, says Mistry, is what sparked the campaign's payoff line: "The next best thing to delivering it yourself."

The concept was brought to life through the creative use of one central character - the courier. All three ads were shot in a challenging one day marathon in Cape Town, directed by Leon Jacobs of Giant Films and edited by Paul West of Prime Cut.

According to both Mistry and Jacobs, the casting was critical as they needed one actor to play four very different roles in order for the creative to work.

The courier links the sender of a package with its recipient by 'becoming' the sender themselves, playing not only a courier, but a gentle lover, a cheesy executive and a disgruntled wife in each individual scenario.