News
Tennessee Tech’s iCube partners with NASCAR, Tennessee Highway Safety Office to promote sober driving
Left: Tennessee Tech iCube program manager Stephanie Scarborough helps prepare NASCAR driver
Ross Chastain to film a PSA for the iCube-produced “Use Your Melon” sober driving
campaign with the Tennessee Highway Safety Office. Right: A screengrab of a Tennessee Tech iCube-produced video PSA featuring NASCAR driver
Ross Chastain.
NASCAR driver Ross Chastain is known for smashing a watermelon to celebrate his wins
on the racetrack. Now, he’s putting his signature move to use for a good cause through
a media campaign produced by iCube, an arm of Tennessee Tech University’s College
of Business dedicated to bringing creative solutions to traditional problems.
iCube is a partner for the Tennessee Highway Safety Office, which is working with
Chastain on promotional events and messaging encouraging Tennesseans to drive sober.
“The Tennessee Highway Safety Office started working with Ross on a ‘Use Your Melon’
campaign to promote sober driving,” said Stephanie Scarborough, iCube program manager
at Tech. “Through the work that we do with THSO, we do a lot of their media and we’ve
been able to come alongside them on this partnership to create a paid digital and
social campaign and plan public events raising awareness about the dangers of impaired
driving.”
iCube, located in Tech’s Volpe Library, has extensive experience in policy and advertising
campaigns. It now designs roughly a dozen paid media campaigns for the Tennessee Highway
Safety Office each year as part of a $1.2 million grant, according to iCube associate
marketing director Sydney Kiser.
“We really are a fully functioning ad agency,” Kiser noted.
While iCube has taken on a number of impactful campaigns for clients over the years
– from fighting the opioid crisis and encouraging healthy choices for diabetes patients,
to promoting car seat safety and cautioning against smoking for those who are pregnant
– Scarborough and Kiser say their work with Chastain has been particularly rewarding.
“One thing I have noticed about working with Ross, is that NASCAR has a very broad
fan base. We’ll have kids, teenagers, parents and grandparents that come out to our
events with him,” said Scarborough. “We’ve worked with other influencers in the past
and he has been a very good, personable partner to have in this effort. He really
does care about spreading this message of being safe on the roadways.”
“We’re not trying to sell anything. In all our advertisements and marketing, we’re
trying to change people’s behavior and, in the end, hopefully save lives,” added Kiser.
In one of the iCube-produced PSAs for THSO, Chastain introduces himself to viewers as “the guy who likes to smash watermelons
on the front stretch of the Nashville Superspeedway,” before adding, “You know what
I never smash? Safety rules.”
“Racing is all about control and the same goes for life on the road,” Chastain continues
in the PSA. “So, use your melon and don’t mix drinking and driving … We’re all racing
to a safer Tennessee, and we want you there at the finish line.”
Kiser and Scarborough, both of whom are also Tech alums, say the partnership with
Chastain is one of several ways that iCube works to promote safety behind the wheel.
Most recently, iCube produced an animated commercial as part of a “Fans Don’t Let Fans Drive Drunk” campaign. The video message, scripted
entirely by iCube, plays in sports venues across the state as part of a partnership
with the Tennessee Titans, Memphis Grizzlies, Nashville Predators and others. The
projects are funded through a grant provided by the Tennessee Highway Safety Office.
“Our goal is the road to zero – zero fatalities,” Kiser concluded. “We’re trying to
bring awareness and change to our fellow Tennesseans.”
Learn more about iCube at www.tntech.edu/icube.
