Trucks Help Fans Cement Allegiance to Their Teams

by Deseret Morning News

As if you needed more evidence that sports are taking over the world, now you can follow your local team--literally--on the side of cement trucks.

North Ogden-based Staker & Parson Cos., the largest of several Utah producers of sand, gravel and concrete, is wrapping its cement mixers with the colors, logos and pictures of local sports hotbeds including Brigham Young University, the University of Utah, Utah State, Weber State, Dixie State and the Utah Grizzlies. Staker & Parson trucks celebrate BYU and Utah. Trucks also sport USU, Weber and Dixie State logos and colors. "It's a cool sight--they're going slow; you can see it as you pass them," spokeswoman Lindsay Rowles said.


"It's on their dime," said Staker & Parson spokeswoman Lindsay Rowles. "It's just a way to say, 'Let's give back to the community.'

So, next time you're stuck behind a concrete mixer crawling up Parleys Canyon kicking rocks onto your windshield, don't get mad--just look at the truck's wrapping and think of your beloved Aggies or Utes or Cougars or Wildcats or whatever.

"We had one at our homecoming game and the response was way fun," said USU associate athletic director Kevin Dustin. "I think it's a great idea."

It costs about $5,000 per to wrap the mixers, according to Rowles.

Staker's concrete mixers join such unlikely promotion places as rest room stalls, elevators, gas pumps, the tops of trucks, entire buses and who knows what else. "I'm always intrigued with people who come up with a new medium," local marketing expert Dave Thomas said.

Yeah, you might be thinking, but a cement truck?--that's just weird.

Au contraire, mon frere. Think about it:

• "We're going to grind the other team into dust!" (or sand, or gravel).
• "I couldn't get through, coach. Their defense was like a cement wall."
• "What was the play again? I'm all mixed up." (OK, this one's a stretch.)
• "No mercy! Pour it on! Bury them!"

(With regard to the last, what do you call a bitterly hated rival sports team member up to his neck in concrete? Not enough concrete.)

Through various means including landscaping, lobbying and heightened PR, Staker & Parson has been trying for some time to improve its public image. Let's face it--when you think of a gravel company, probably what comes to mind are unsightly gravel pits, the aforementioned cement trucks making you late for your appointment with the boss, dirty roads, heavy equipment, fat guys with jackhammers. And with urban areas increasingly encroaching onto gravel companies' mining operations, the conflicts are only getting worse. A state legislative task force, in fact, is holding regular meetings to determine what to do about those dang gravel pits, with legislation likely next year.

"Yeah, the construction industry kind of has a stigma," Rowles said.

"It (the sporting concrete mixer wrappings) may soften the image a little bit," Thomas said. "Of course, there could be some negative transfer in people's minds--somebody may negatively associate the team or the athlete with the experience of being behind the cement truck. I think it will mainly be positive, though."

And, yes, both the U. and BYU trucks will be there at the two universities' gridiron grudge match Nov. 22.

Depending on the drivers' allegiances, watch out for falling concrete.

E-Mail: aedwards@desnews.com

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