International Paper Pushes More Than Envelopes in Services Pitch - International Paper Co. advertising campaign - Brief Article

Brandweek, Feb 19, 2001 by Todd Wasserman

Evolving a campaign that has addressed environmentalist opposition, International Paper this week breaks a print effort using lots of green imagery, but honing the message to portray IP as a solutions provider, not a manufacturer.

The campaign, via Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, New York, builds on the six-year-old "My father works at International Paper" theme, which showed tots giving a human face to the company. Four executions highlight key words, like "innovation," "support," "global" and "solutions"-attributes that IP would like its business customers to associate with the company.

Stark black-and-white photos show kids throwing airplanes, climbing trees, clowning with bananas and using a jacket on a branch as a makeshift umbrella against pristine, natural backgrounds. The ads break this week in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Fortune.

Michael Balduino, senior vice president for corporate sales and marketing at the Purchase, N.Y.-based firm, said the campaign was conceived as a defensive move in 1995, but IP has moved on. "We were being targeted by environmentalists," he said. "As that whole environment settled down, we began the shift toward customer."

About three years ago, IP also began an internal shift away from manufacturing and towards marketing, Balduino said. Nevertheless, the firm's fortunes at any given time are closely tied to the timber market, which is currently in a slump. But Jerry Cadigan, dir-advertising services, said the vicissitudes of the financial market don't affect IP's ad budget.

"At any one particular quarter, business will be up or down, but we feel it's important to keep pushing ahead." The print campaign will add about 10-15% to IP's ad budget this year, Balduino said. IP spent $18 million on advertising last year, per Competitive Media Reporting.

Meanwhile, Sheldon Rampton, editor of PR Watch in Madison, Wis., said there's a limit to what advertising can do for IP's image.

"A portion of the public will never buy the idea that these are the good guys, but if they're the not-so-good guys, they may tolerate them as sort of a reformed sinner," he said.