Message in a bottle, er, box

Exhausted parcel delivery workers pulling double shifts during this year's hectic peak holiday season could be excused if they thought they heard voices in their heads.

But it might not have been just their imagination. Some of the boxes loaded onto UPS Inc.'s delivery trucks in Canada really did "talk," thanks to the logistics and transportation giant's "Message in a Parcel" program. In December, Mississauga, Ont.-based UPS Canada conducted a promotional campaign that allowed selected shippers to share a personalized greeting with the package's recipient by recording a verbal message to be delivered with the parcel.

The offering was not available on most of the 700 million packages that UPS delivered globally in the 25 days between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. Nor were the "Message in a Parcel" kits available for purchase. The special offer was restricted to a lucky 15 Canadians who won a Facebook contest that invited them to tell who they were missing the most during the holiday season.