As I passed a U-Haul truck on the highway, I noticed something odd. On the side of the U-Haul trucks are pictures for the “Venture Across America” campaign, with pictures for the different states. Sometimes they are kitschy, like an old postcard. This one was just strange. It was a Doppler radar map, with a huge storm, lots of red and orange, along with a large green wireframe drawing of a tornado. It said “Oklahoma” in large letters across the top.
What? Go to Oklahoma, where you can experience really bad storms and lots of tornados? What were they thinking? That does not make me want to visit Oklahoma. In fact, it makes me want to avoid Oklahoma at all costs. I had to deal with a storm that was yellow, orange and red on the Doppler radar last week, and that was not fun. There is no way I would intentionally seek that out.
As I passed the truck, I noticed that in smaller letters it said, “Center for Weather Research, Forecasting and Education”. I don’t think that really softened the blow. It was as if they said that the weather there is so bad, they have a lot of opportunities to research it. Again, not something that makes me want to rent a U-Haul and head to Oklahoma any time soon.
I think someone in marketing needs to rethink Oklahoma’s representation in this campaign. Or maybe Oklahoma needs to send an ambassador to U-Haul and set them straight. I wonder if Promo’s up for the task?
I think I saw an “advertisement” once for Hawaii too. Odd, I don’t think you can drive a U-Haul to Hawaii, can you? Nice that they were represented, but it still seems strange.
Update: Maybe U-Haul has revamped all of the images, going for the freaky instead of kitschy? Because look at the one for Texas – what are those green blobs? How about Hawaii? That spider thing with the screaming smiley alien face is just scary. And it says “Alien Battlefield at Hawaii Volcanos Nat’l Park”. Uhm, ok. I think they need to drop the “Modern Graphics” campaign and switch back to the “Classic Graphics“. Fast. The classic Oklahoma graphic will get me there a lot faster then that freaky giant tornado!
