The UPS Whiteboard campaign is so simple, it’s ripe for parody. And sure enough, you don’t have to search YouTube for very long to find comical alternate versions of these ads. The real campaign, meanwhile, is also an amateur production—in a sense. Created by The Martin Agency’s Andy Azula, it also stars ... Andy Azula. In his original conception, Azula imagined hiring an actor to play the part of the clever artist doodling in brown marker on the whiteboard to illustrate “what brown can do for you.” But after a broad casting call, the client decided nobody did the job with more style than Martin’s own creative director. Azula may have inadvertently worked himself into the role with his original pitch—a camcorder video of himself drawing on the whiteboard. By the time the ads were finished, Azula had done about 60 takes for each of the 11 spots.

—Posted by Tim Nudd