Rage Against The Machine

As founding partners in the highly successful Fatality Free Friday campaign, the team here at Business Communications Management has become increasingly conscious of how we drive - particularly since we all have the campaign stickers on our car.

If we're going to promote safe driving, then we ought to make sure the 'walk matches the talk'.

It's been pointed out before that anyone driving a company car shouldn't place personal stickers on the vehicle - particularly those that fall under 'humour' category, since what's funny is largely subjective and typically crass.

In addition to diluting your brand message, extraneous stickers appear to be an indicator for a driver to have a propensity towards road rage:

According to William Szlemko (social psychologist, Colorado State University), in his recent study published at the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, the more a driver has bumper stickers, window decals, personalized licensed plates and other territorial markers on his vehicle, the greater is his tendency to get mad when someone cuts into his lane.

One might expect that from cars sporting belligerent and/or aggressive stickers, but here's the catch:

He (Szlemko) explained the driver behavior to the concept of territoriality in which the motorist equates public roads as "my street" or "my lanes"

This behavior applies even to drivers whose cars may have peace-bearing messages like "Visualize World Peace" or a threatening marker such as "Don't Mess With Texas" and "My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student".

Your staff members are as much part of your marketing force as your agency and just as much (if not more) influence on public perception.