EI was approached by a marketing company representing Dos Equis. They had a pretty tall order. To go along with "The Worlds Most Interesting Man" add campaign Dos Equis needed trucks in major cities for Cinco De Mayo celebrations. The premise was simple, the worlds most interesting man was returning from his jungle expedition where he happened to discover the lost civilization. As any good explorer would do he brought back evidence in the form of 3 Mayan Princesses....Ok enough of the campaign. EI was tasked with handling the vehicles for San Francisco, Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles, Ft. Lauderdale, San Antonio, Phoenix, and New York. We used 4 of our own vehicles t handle the West Coast and Phoenix, then got on the phone and started calling customers to coordinate rentals for the other 4 cities.
With 3 weeks to coordinate, EI cranked it up and went to work. Coordination, driver training, contracts, insurance....pretty much a marathon. To tell you how Just in Time it was Brian Mason (EI Engineer) used his own custom 712DK for the Phoenix promo vehicle. The wrap was completed at EI in Vallejo, 30 minutes later Brian was on the road driving to Phoenix to deliver. Brian drove all night, arrived in Phoenix with two hours to spare and the truck made it's opening night debut.
We had a lot of fun with this campaign. Learned a number of valuable lessons as well. #1 - Marketing teams do not understand the unique characteristics of these vehicles. Try explaining to 3 "Mayan Princesses" they will be traveling in a soft top Pinzgauer for 200+ miles in an evening with multiple stops, in poor weather, on the freeway.....yep you get the picture! #2 - A vinyl wrap on a poor paint job works very good at removing the paint. #3 - Marketing companies pay well for promotional vehicles. Don't undersell yourself!
The next time the phone rings make sure you answer as EI might just be asking if you want to rent your vehicle for a promo!
So the story goes that a select group of 15 x 718 Pinzgauers were used by Delta Force (Task Force 20) to enter Iraq on March 19th, 2003 en-route to the Haditha dam complex. These were the first "operators" to enter the country and attack/secure high priority targets. Their mode of transport was the Pinzgauer 718 Turbo Diesel gun trucks. Officially the Iraq war started the next day on March 20th. Fast forward to the Pinzgauers sitting in Qatar for a number of years before making their way back to the U.S., being de-militarized and surplussed by the Federal Government.
With 3 weeks to coordinate, EI cranked it up and went to work. Coordination, driver training, contracts, insurance....pretty much a marathon. To tell you how Just in Time it was Brian Mason (EI Engineer) used his own custom 712DK for the Phoenix promo vehicle. The wrap was completed at EI in Vallejo, 30 minutes later Brian was on the road driving to Phoenix to deliver. Brian drove all night, arrived in Phoenix with two hours to spare and the truck made it's opening night debut.
We had a lot of fun with this campaign. Learned a number of valuable lessons as well. #1 - Marketing teams do not understand the unique characteristics of these vehicles. Try explaining to 3 "Mayan Princesses" they will be traveling in a soft top Pinzgauer for 200+ miles in an evening with multiple stops, in poor weather, on the freeway.....yep you get the picture! #2 - A vinyl wrap on a poor paint job works very good at removing the paint. #3 - Marketing companies pay well for promotional vehicles. Don't undersell yourself!
