The Hollard Highway Heroes competition is one of those rare corporate initiatives that does good way beyond a marketing imperative. In this instance, it makes our country’s roads safer for everyone who uses them.
When you consider that 44-million of our compatriots are regular road users – as drivers, passengers and pedestrians – that’s a whole lot of good being done.
In essence, Hollard Highway Heroes is a competition in which truck drivers vie for amazing prizes and the title of Highway Hero: the best truck driver in the country. They do that by driving carefully, not speeding and not driving when they’re tired – and they’re monitored in real time using telemetry.
Hollard Trucking, the division of Hollard Insure that stages the competition, knows that better driving means fewer accidents and thus fewer insurance claims. Hollard obviously benefits, but so do its clients and, ultimately, you and I.
This speaks to Hollard’s Better Futures business purpose, which holds that everything the company does, and how it does it, enables more people to create and secure a better future.
For us at Flow, Highway Heroes is thus a great campaign to work on every year for Hollard Insure, one of our clients. But what makes the 2018 competition extra special to us is that through the winner, Stephen Meje, we have a link to another of our awesome clients: Elegant Fuel.
Stephen, who drives for Pretoria-based Faith Wheels, transports Elegant’s product to destinations all over South Africa. Faith Wheels and Elegant have close business links, and so Stephen’s win is effectively Elegant’s too.
One of our favourite bits about Highway Heroes is when the winner’s truck is emblazoned with Highway Heroes branding (and his face), telling the world who he is (there’ve been no women winners – yet). It’s then revealed to the winner in a special ceremony.
Recently we travelled to the far east of Pretoria to see and record Stephen’s big reveal. And as always, it was a really special moment.
Stephen clapped his hands and threw his head back, smiling broadly, as his Faith Wheels colleagues and visitors from Elegant Fuel applauded him.
“The truck looks so beautiful!” he exclaimed.
Mark Fourie, director of Faith Wheels, said the truck’s branding not only highlights Stephen, but also both the Faith Wheels and Elegant Fuel brands.
“For branding and awareness, it’s excellent for the Faith Wheels and Elegant Fuel brands. Everyone will see it.”
He lauded Stephen as a highly skilled driver “who really embraced Hollard Highway Heroes and was motivated to do well” – in the process making all of Faith Wheels’ drivers more attentive about road safety.
Elegant Group director Ryno Strydom, who attended the reveal, said Stephen’s win illustrates the value of empowering people.
“We always put our people first, including the communities in which we operate, students and schoolchildren, our customers, our own staff and those of our partners – including the drivers of our trucks.
“And what we get in return is quality, as demonstrated by Stephen Meje; his recognition as Hollard Highway Hero for 2018 is a great achievement, and a big empowerment win for us,” he said.
Hollard Highway Heroes competition manager Elka du Piesanie said it was wonderful to witness Stephen’s reaction to his big reveal.
“To see Stephen’s great delight at how we’ve branded his truck was a reminder of just how meaningful Highway Heroes is to the drivers who participate in it,” she said.
“Which makes the prospect of the 2019 Highway Heroes that much more exciting. We’ve got great plans for this year’s competition, which will be revealed soon.”
We can hardly wait!