I’ve had too many conversations the UPS ‘Whiteboard’ commercials. I personally find them relatively creative, but not a single friend of mine agrees. I know this because UPS airs the commercials during every quarter of every NFL game.

The next discussion point immediately moves to, “Who is the long haired artist?” Again, I personally think that he is a pretty talented and creative cartoonist (right word?) - but everyone disagrees. And I am always alone in saying that the artist must be famous… after all, how could UPS run a multi-million dollar campaign with an actor or a random guy as the focal point?

It turns out that the answer is somewhere in between, and it’s fascinating. It turns out that the actor is Andy Azula and he is the creative director for The Martin Agency. He came up with the ‘Whiteboard’ concept, got UPS on board and became the face of the campaign. So there you go.

Wikipedia continues: “Andy Azula is a creative director for The Martin Agency, who achieved notoriety after starring in a series of advertisements he created for the United Parcel Service in which he draws on a whiteboard. The ads were directed by Errol Morris. Azula began his career at Leoffler Ketchum Mountjoy. He won awards for his work on North Carolina Travel and Tourism. He later worked at Fallon McElligott in Minnesota where he developed the Buddy Lee campaign for Lee Jeans. He also worked at Goodby Silverstein and Partners and McCann Erickson in San Francisco,[1] creating advertising campaigns for Microsoft. His accounts have also included BMW, Budweiser, E*Trade, and MSN. His work has won him a number of Cliowards, the advertising industry’s highest honor.”