Marketing heavy equipment is all about showcasing its capabilities and special features, but whilst the most effective and direct marketing is seeing a Mecalac dumper in action, it is far from the only approach you can take.
Many manufacturers and businesses will take rather more unusual approaches to showcase what their equipment can do, particularly if such a challenge or demonstration would provide some free prime-time publicity.
Excavators, skid-steers and other heavy construction equipment have been demonstrated on television shows such as You Bet, taking part in rather unusual challenges that demonstrate a remarkable level of controllability and versatility on the part of the machine.
However, in Switzerland, a rather more unusual demonstration of the features and capability of a dump truck was found on the German-language version of You Bet, a show known as Wetten Dass (“Wanna Bet?”)
From 1981 until its cancellation in 2014, Wetten Dass was a German institution, becoming the most successful television show in Europe at one point, aided by being broadcast in Switzerland over Eurovision, and featuring some of the biggest celebrities in the world.
At the end of its first year,on 12th December 1981, Wetten Dasshad one of its biggest stars, a long green dump truck, as the centrepiece of a challenge that challenged a team of five mechanics to lift a truck onto four beer glasses.
Despite sounding like a ridiculous challenge, it highlighted the importance of balance and weight distribution with the vehicle. After all, heavy vehicles with poor weight distribution can get bogged down on a construction site or when driving in less-than-perfect conditions.
In just five minutes, the mechanics had managed to load the truck onto the glasses and remove the jacks, leading to the astonishing display of a dumper suspended by just four drinks glasses.
Apparently, once it had been completed, one of the mechanics turned the steering wheel slightly, causing the glasses to shatter and proving it was done for real.
