Speak up, sometimes your voice is heard. This was the message Friday when truckers expressed their ire about a negative radio commercial that depicted truck drivers as sleep-deprived and careless.
The ad drew protest from the Canadian Trucking Assn. (CTA) resulting in Subaru Canada pulling it from the air late last week.
The advertisement featured a fictitious traffic reporter warning drivers of a trucker on the road who looked like “he hasn’t slept in two days,” according to the Toronto Star.
CTA sent a letter to Subaru slamming the ad and within a few hours Subaru notified the trucking association the ad was pulled. CTA spokesperson Marco Beghetto told the Star that yanking the “cheap shot” ad was the right thing to do.
“That kind of portrayal really harkened back to Smokey and the Bandit. That’s not what a truck driver is like these days,” Beghetto said. “I recognize that it was an attempt at satire, but I don’t think any of our members were laughing. The industry takes a lot of pride in its fatigue management.”
“There really was never any intent to offend truck drivers. Clearly, without the services that truck drivers provide, we wouldn’t have a business,” Subaru spokesman Joe Felstein said in a written statement. “Truck drivers deliver our products safely and on time.”
