A new, non-regional specific logo for Centennial Bank’s annual Stuck on a Truck competition is a sign of growth, marketing team members said.
For the bank, the competition’s association with Conway’s festival Toad Suck Daze has been integral, but removing “Toad Suck” from the logo is necessary if the competition and surrounding marketing activities are to be picked up by branches in other communities.
Eric King, Centennial Bank public relations officer, said the competition that was started in 2001 in Conway is known company-wide in the three states the bank has opened branches.
King said each year the event’s popularity supersedes the last.
Online views of the live feed of contestants attempting to outlast each other and be the final one “stuck” on the red Ford truck were just shy of 300,000.
“That’s in just a few days,” King said.
David Druey, Centennial’s market president and the man with the idea to bring the competition to Conway, said the contest has a core physical crowd of about 150 people throughout the competition.
Some are supporters of contestants, some are fans of the spectacle and others are sponsors and Centennial employees taking shifts at the site.
Toad Suck Daze sets up as the competition gets going, and is often packed away again before the remaining few are done battling fatigue and sleep depravation.
Melissa Love, the bank’s graphic designer in marketing, created the logo.
The anchor of the logo is a license plate.
Love said a license plate is stuck — as contestants in the event are — on a truck.
King said he expects the idea of tying the competition in to other regional festivals will be adopted at other Centennial branches.
“The company would like to see us do this somewhere else,” Love said.
Centennial Bank has 108 branches in Arkansas, Alabama and Florida.
The competition begins the day before Toad Suck Daze, traditionally the last weekend in April or the first of May.
Boxes to collect contestant names will be distributed at sponsors and Centennial Bank branches Friday.
(Staff writer Courtney Spradlin can be reached by email at courtney.spradlin@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1236. To comment on this and other stories in the Log Cabin, log on to www.thecabin.net. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)