Delivered Just in Time for Kickoff - Ingles

If professional football did not exist, Madison Avenue would probably try to invent it. The sport delivers large audiences for the important fall and Christmas shopping seasons. Those audiences almost all watch the games live, meaning there is no fast-forwarding through commercials during DVR playbacks. And each season culminates with a mid-winter event during which viewers are known to focus on the ads as much as the action.

So this year’s lengthy lockout, which raised speculation that there would be no 2011-12 National Football League season, filled marketers and agencies with dread. The settlement that meant the season would start on time brought loud sighs of relief, along with a rush by N.F.L. sponsors to put the finishing touches on big new advertising efforts.

A notable example is FedEx, which will introduce a campaign during the first game of the season, between the Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints, which will be broadcast by NBC on Thursday. The campaign presents a new theme, “Solutions that matter,” which replaces a theme, “We understand,” that was introduced in 2009.

“We were sweating” the potential for a delay or disruption, said Steve Pacheco, director for advertising at FedEx in Memphis.

With the potential of disruption in the past, he added, FedEx put together “an aggressive plan to launch the campaign.”

In addition to the television commercials, elements of the campaign include ads online as well as commercials in movie theaters and on the FedEx channel on YouTube, at youtube.com/FedEx. Also, a section of the FedEx Web site will be devoted to the campaign, at fedex.com/solutionsthatmatter.

Although the previous theme “performed well,” Mr. Pacheco said, “we needed to do a better job telling all the cool things we do to help solve people’s problems,” whether it is delivering precious cargo, printing documents or shipping golf clubs.

“We’re too young to have an identity crisis,” he said of FedEx, which began express package deliveries in 1973, “but we want to make sure people know all the roles we play.”

The first four commercials in the campaign use humor to try to achieve that goal. One spot borrows Hollywood techniques, including special effects and dramatic music, to tell how FedEx can deliver a heart valve from Australia “in time for an operation” in Los Angeles.

A second spot is devoted to explaining to the owner of an auto repair shop, who is looking for “an edge,” how FedEx can ship parts “from factories around the world” and “clear them through customs.”

A third commercial describes how the services available at FedEx Office stores can even help an entrepreneur who is hidden in the witness protection program.

And in a fourth commercial, a FedEx employee delivers packages to a company that is trying to be “more environmentally aware.” When he is unexpectedly asked to talk about FedEx’s green steps, he mentions “more electric trucks and lower-emission planes” as well as reusable envelopes.

The campaign is being produced by the longtime creative agency for FedEx, BBDO New York, part of the BBDO North America unit of BBDO Worldwide, which is owned by the Omnicom Group.

“Once you change people’s perspectives of what FedEx can do, they can connect the dots fairly quickly,” said Mike Smith, executive creative director at BBDO New York.

Mr. Pacheco described the budget for the campaign as “healthy,” adding with a laugh, “We’ve saved up our nickels and dimes.”

According to the Kantar Media unit of WPP, FedEx spent $10.6 million to advertise in major media in the first quarter compared with $29.7 million in the same period of 2010.

Ad spending by FedEx totaled $121.1 million last year, Kantar Media reported, up from $103.4 million in 2009 and $117.1 million in 2008, but down from $162.1 million in 2007.

Another sign of the ardor among advertisers for the N.F.L. is the strong demand for commercial time in Super Bowl XLVI, to be broadcast by NBC on Feb. 5, 2012.

Of the estimated 63 30-second commercial slots during the game, all but five or six are already sold, at prices estimated to be as much as $3.5 million apiece.

Among those already identified as Super Bowl sponsors are Anheuser-Busch InBev, Century 21, Chevrolet, GoDaddy, Mercedes-Benz and Pepsi-Cola. FedEx had been a regular Super Bowl advertiser but skipped the game in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

“Officially, we don’t know yet” whether the company will return to the Super Bowl next year, Mr. Pacheco said. “The decision will be made very soon.”

Perhaps tipping his hand, he added, “I do believe there’ll be other opportunities, maybe outside the Super Bowl, for big impact” for the campaign.

The new football season will also usher in the annual spate of ads with popular N.F.L. players as the stars. Among them will be a campaign for the Ugg line of men’s shoes and boots sold by the Deckers Outdoor Corporation, featuring Tom Brady of the New England Patriots.

A commercial created by the Los Angeles office of M&C Saatchi, in which Mr. Brady wears Ugg footwear, is to run on Monday on ESPN during the first “Monday Night Football” game of the season. The spot is also appearing online on Web sites that include uggaustralia.com.

The campaign includes national print and outdoor ads created by House Design and Film in Los Angeles. (source New York Times)