FEATURE: Marketing to Women
Showcasing Women Improves Marketing
In June 2018, NFI Industries’ driver workforce was well below the national average of 10 percent women. The disparity set off alarm bells at the third-party logistics company.
Female drivers take center stage in NFI’s new marketing campaign.
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After extensive conversations about the need to recruit more female drivers, NFI Senior Project Manager Alexa Branco and a team of recruiting and operations colleagues sprang into action to remedy the situation, she explained in a presentation at the 2019 Accelerate! Conference. Recognizing that the right marketing campaign could help to bolster recruiting efforts, they formulated a plan. They began by interviewing female drivers from a local NFI fleet in Philadelphia. They spent the day on site, asking questions like, “What brought you to driving?” and “What would encourage other women to drive?” The team also talked with NFI managers about the value that female drivers bring to the organization. The firsthand feedback from both groups was invaluable, Branco says. The general consensus was that NFI should showcase its current female drivers to help raise awareness of the opportunity for women to drive trucks and show that the company is a great place to work.
“If you’re in the transportation industry, you know that women can drive, but if you’re outside the industry, you probably would have no idea that driving a truck could be a career choice for women,” Branco points out.
Giving Female Drivers a Voice The research served as inspiration for NFI’s new ad campaign: “She Drives.” The premise is that women not only drive trucks, but also drive innovation and drive the company forward. Each static ad and video in the series features a female driver talking about why she drives or why she works at NFI. Launched in August 2018, it is the first campaign to feature female drivers in the history of the company which was founded in 1932. A new ad is released every month on social media in strategic local markets. Family, flexibility and freedom are common themes. continued on page 28
