Last month, the American Trucking Associations unveiled its new image campaign, Nothing Without Trucking. It is a timely re-brand of ATA’s previous Trucking Moves America Forward image campaign, which replaced Good Stuff, Trucks Bring It. Since, STC has fielded a few questions from colleagues and the trade press asking: why now? And, what’s new?

It’s easy to forget how critical the industry is to communities across the country – especially those without access to other modes of freight transport. Indeed, far too often, the motoring public’s focus is instead on the occasional inconvenience of driving around big trucks (or an unnecessary fear). Yet, we all enjoy the convenience of picking up our essentials and sundries at our local store – or better yet, ordering online and having them delivered to our door.

The new campaign looks to be diving a little deeper by reminding folks that it’s not just truck drivers contributing to trucking’s vital mission. It’s dispatchers, mechanics, dockworkers, and administrative staff. With 8.4 million people employed in trucking-related jobs, just about everyone knows someone connected to the industry.

The new messaging strategy hopefully reminds us that, no matter what our political, social, or religious affiliations, we an industry working together to accomplish our critical mission safely and efficiently for all of America, because it’s our job. It’s a good reminder to policy makers that we should expect the same from them; to solve critical problems and, to borrow from a previous motto, to “Move America Forward.” STC truly hopes this campaign resonates with policy makers, the mainstream press, and the public. It’s a critical component to help  change the tone of conversations and the perception of trucking and is, at least in part, aimed at disarming the deep political divide on Capitol Hill.