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ATA complains about Coke’s Super Bowl ad
By Jill Dunn
In summer 2005, Coke promoted Full Throttle with a fleet of decorated Mack Granite mixers that traveled to music festivals and NASCAR races.
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As Yogi Berra said, “It's deja vu all over again.” Once again, a Super Bowl commercial featuring a truck is causing a stir.
In 2003, trucking organizations complained about a Super Bowl commercial for employment website Monster.com, which responded by tweaking the ad that showed a driverless, out-of-control truck.
This year’s controversy is over a Coca-Cola commercial. A Jan. 19 USA Today story describes the 60-second spot for Coke’s highly caffeinated "energy drink" Full Throttle, a rival of the popular Red Bull: “A Full Throttle semi plows through neighborhoods recruiting manly men from humdrum lives,” the newspaper reports. “At the close, it pushes Red Bull's signature silver-and-white truck off the road. Tagline: Let Your Man Out.”
In the version of the ad online at http://announce.coca-cola.com/full_throttle/index.html, the Full Throttle semi itself doesn't "plow" through the neighborhood, though it does lead a motley procession of sometimes destructive men in various vehicles, including a tank that crashes through a house in its driver's zeal to follow the semi. The Red Bull driver in a much smaller truck sees the Full Throttle semi in his rear-view mirror and pulls off the road in a hurry.
Bill Graves, president and chief executive officer of the American Trucking Associations, described the commercial, scheduled to air during the Feb. 5 game, as an inaccurate portrayal of the industry’s safety record.
Graves’ Jan. 24 letter to Neville Isdell, Coca-Cola chairman and CEO, said the commercial “will reinforce and help perpetuate a negative stereotype that the trucking industry and our professional drivers have fought long and hard to overcome.”
Coca-Cola did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2003, those who campaigned against the Monster.com ad included the ATA, NATSO and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. Even Annette Sandberg, then acting administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said that ad misrepresented the industry.
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