Nebraska U takes road trip by advertising on trucks

BY SARAH FOX / The Associated Press

OMAHA -- Motorists across the country will soon see advertisements touting the University of
Nebraska.  Three different ads will be pasted onto the sides of five semitrailers hauling food and
furniture in the United States, Canada and Mexico.  "We don't get in the trucking business, just the
advertising business," said NU marketing director Sharon Stephan.


On a cold, windy Friday in downtown Omaha near the Missouri River, university officials showed off
ads on two of the trailers. A green DNA molecule spiraled across one semitrailer with roller-coaster
like loops. Five men and five women -- with tools such as a microscope, a globe and a laptop --
smiled on the side of the second truck. A third design will show the inside of a computer. The ads
proclaim the school's name and say things such as, "Pioneering personal frontiers" and "Pioneering
new frontiers in cancer research."

The gigantic billboards will roll across North America on both sides of the semitrailers, which will
haul mostly furniture or food, said Duane Acklie, chairman of Lincoln-based Crete Carrier Corp.,
which owns the five trailers with the ads.