TMCA

Member Barb Wirth From Houston: "We Survived!"

Thank you so much for your concern about our safety during Hurricane Ike. Although this event blanketed the upper Texas Gulf coast with stories of loss and tragedy, it is also an event that had several little miracles. 

Our home, which was in the mandatory evacuation zone, was supposed to have been obliterated by the forecasted 22 – 27’ storm surge. Miraculously, the storm surge did not exceed 15’ which spared at least 50,000 homes from the same fate suffered by our neighbors in Galveston and Boliver Peninsula.

Going green when you burn millions of gallons of diesel every day

As we head toward the elections with oil still well north of $100 per barrel, sustainability remains a hot topic.  Our industry is faced with an unfortunate reality.  That reality is that our number one cost is to buy the thing that the public has come to hate; fuel.  We are between a rock and a hard place in that no one has produced a viable technology to diesel fuel and yet freight has to move. 

Sustainability is timely, it’s topical, it will get you ink in our favorite trade and national media, but that’s not why we should all do it.  We should do it, because environmental sustainability equates to business sustainability.  So, while we do not yet have a solution that will produce a viable alternative to burning millions of gallons each day, we all have a solid array of initiatives that make business sense.  They cut our costs and they make us better neighbors, better employers and better suppliers. 

Finding brand affinity in the strangest places

Brands are the sum of all the promises a company makes. That’s one of a thousand or more definitions that I have seen and used throughout my career. It’s concise, it’s simple, and it’s one of my favorite definitions. Defining every possible interaction with a brand is a lot harder and predicting which of those interactions creates affinity for a brand is nearly impossible. But if it was easy, they wouldn’t call it work.

In this posting, I’d like to cite one of the most visceral brand interactions of late and the affinity that it created for me. Bear with me on this one, it will be worth it…

Recession-proof yourself and your company

[Adapted from On The Move, Edition 1, 2008]

I’m certain that most of us are concerned about the economy and what it will mean to our business. The transportation economy relies on the global economy and vice versa.

But closer to home, we rely on the transportation economy to put food on our tables and roofs over our heads. So how do you make yourself and your company recession-proof?  In uncertain times like we now face, marketers will face increasing scrutiny over their budgets and increasing accountability over their return on marketing’s investment. This level of accountability may feel a bit invasive at first, but undoubtedly, it will help us all become better marketers and, in turn, better stewards of our company’s resources.

Marketing and Fuel Prices

In the last few weeks, I’ve had some time to reflect on Jevic going out of business.  It’s unfortunate and saddening when a respected competitor exits the industry. Jevic surely had good people, good equipment and good systems.  So what caused their demise?