Webasto 'leaps' into online environmental education, information
A frog is the "mascot" for Webasto's environmental education effort. (Courtesy Webasto)
By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff
3/27/2008
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Webasto, a company best known for its design and development of idle reduction technology, has decided to leap forward into another line of business — online education.
The company announced Wednesday afternoon it had launched a viral video on YouTube that uses humor and striking graphics to draw attention and awareness to the Web site www.makealeap.org (LEaP), which seeks to collect and clearly display idle reduction information and educational resources in one centralized location.
The LEaP acronym stands for Lowering Emissions and Particulates.
LEaP’s mascot is a green frog, chosen as a metaphor for environmental well-being: in nature the health of frog populations is a direct reflection of the cleanliness of their environment.
“We decided that we did not just want to sell things, but to things to help our customers and other learn more about conserving energy,” John Thomas, Webasto’s vice president for marketing, told reporters at a news conference at the Mid-America Trucking Show here.
Thomas said the company had decided it was time someone undertook the task of taking all the information about conservation “and putting it in one place.”
Although the site has actually been operational since October 2007, Wednesday’s announcement was the more public launch of the site, Thomas said, adding the site had received wide praise as an educational and informational single point-of-reference database.
“LEaP combines some of the best information available, particularly on difficult-to-understand, difficult-to-track status of the many different idling laws and regulations from states and local municipalities across the U.S.,” Thomas said. “Fleets and owner-operators alike have expressed an interest in a homogeneous national law on idling but until that time LEaP is a user-friendly source of information for those in need.”
The frog is a continuous theme throughout the Web site and viewers of the video (which can be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/MakeALEap) will see that the frog has a starring role in the movie.
“Frogs are environmental indicators,” Thomas reiterated after showing a video of a frog leaping on the running board of a big rig that the driver had left idling. The frog reaches inside the cab and turns off the ignition and offers a smile upon seeing the driver return to wonder who’d turned off the engine.
“For more than 60 years Webasto has been committed to the pursuit of developing and providing engine-off comfort and environmental solutions to the global transportation industry,” Thomas said. “One area where Webasto’s products have been ahead of technology trends is in environmental consideration and consciousness, so this site and what it attempts to achieve is a logical initiative for us to lead. And this is not a commercial website: within the reference for environmental products, for instance, it lists all of our business competitors alongside Webasto. Idle reduction and environmental issues are a challenge for all to tackle together.
“Webasto was green before it was cool to be green.”
There are four core themes in the new Web site.
Information will show tangible opportunities that can be achieved via idle reduction, such as:
• Increasing financial savings for truck fleets and owner-operators
• Reducing America’s dependency on foreign oil
• Reducing GHG (green house gases)/CO2, and
• Improving idle reduction education.