Nebraska Truckers Are Not Always What You Think
Viewers were treated to the image of a stereotypical truck driver, complete with flannel shirt and scruffy beard, crying as he listens to an audio version of “Little Women.” Another 30-second commercial portrays a woman truck driver down-shifting her 18-wheeler, the camera catching a sexy male silhouette on the trailer’s mud flap before the tag line pops up on the screen: “Truckers. They’re not always what you think.”
Nebraskans also started encountering ads in a similar vein on radio stations around the state. Listeners hear a truck driver practicing French while hauling a load of freight, another on the phone with his financial advisor and a third driver listening to the latest Wall Street news in his truck cab.
The ads were unveiled at a Thanksgiving-week news conference in Lincoln, featuring Nebraska Lt. Gov. Kim Roback. “Truck drivers truly are the unsung champions of Nebraska’s economy,” Ms. Roback said. “Three-quarters of all freight moved across this state is transported about Nebraska’s truckers. Just about everything in our lives is available or accessible to use because of a truck driver who delivered it.”
“The main purpose of this campaign is to get the Nebraska population to think of truckers as real people with real interests,” Ms. Harris said. “The drivers are our face to the public. When people think of trucking, they think of drivers.”
She said the broadcast ads will be aired about 22,000 times over the course of the year on stations throughout the state.
The association hopes to recoup some of the expenditure by selling the ads — at cost — to other state trucking associations.
For the full story, see the Dec. 7 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
