Angry commenters hijack UPS blog

The UPS blog has made some progress, but the company is still learning how to move its content. Its posts don’t get many tweets or shares—maybe four or five per day.

Then I noticed one blog post about a basketball game that received 482 shares and 181 comments. What?!

Advertising miscue?

The sensation started a few weeks ago when UPS ran a TV advertisement concurrent with the NCAA basketball tournament. The ad tried to connect a pass that won “the greatest game” to the UPS theme of logistical excellence.

In the 1992 game, an underdog University of Kentucky team known as “The Unforgettables” pulled ahead of Duke—the defending national champion—by one point in the closing seconds of overtime.

With 2.1 seconds left, Duke player Grant Hill threw the ball nearly the length of the court to Christian Laettner, who turned and made the winning shot with no time remaining.

“Everybody remembers the shot. But what about the pass? No pass, no shot,” the ad’s narrator says. “You need a special player to get the ball exactly where it needs to be, exactly when it needs to be there.”