MARCH 11, 2010

Ad of the Week: Zappos Puppets

The Zappos shoe and apparel company has a rather quirky corporate culture, as I discussed in a blog post a couple weeks ago in What Story Is Your Brand Telling. Their latest ad campaign reflects that quirkiness as well as their brand promise of exemplary customer service. To show just how good their representatives are at customer service, the ad agency fake, almost prank calls to real Zappos customer service people and recorded the conversations. These were people with weird requests like the woman who called in and wanted to exchange some workout clothes for a deep fryer.

Without fail, every person answering the phone at Zappos treated the caller with respect and tried to be helpful in whatever situation that was thrown at them. They remained friendly and worked with the customer, no matter how crazy the requests were. It’s a testament to how Zappos does business. The audio for these calls became the audio for Zappos’ ads. Then they made big puppets in the likeness of the employees, using only photos. The results are pretty darn good. Which is why you, Zappos puppet campaign, are our Ad of the Week. Watch the first spot below and then check out the making of video.