The New Jersey-based association created its Beyond Fleet campaign at the end of 2011 to spread the word about the importance and value of professional fleet managers. This was augmented in 2012 with two articles in Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine.

In April last year, NAFA president Douglas Weichman gave an overview of fleet management to Bloomberg BusinessWeek and dispelled several of the myths surrounding fleet. He commented: ‘When people hear “fleet”, they generally picture 18-wheelers or – worse from NAFA’s perspective – ocean liners. The truth is that our members are most likely to be purchasing the same vehicles as the typical consumer. For whatever reason, people in the business community sometimes think that since they personally manage one or two cars at home that managing a fleet of 1,500 cars wouldn’t be that difficult. It is.’

Mr Weichman also spoke in specifics about the efforts of fleet managers to “right-size” their vehicles and work to prevent distracted driving. 

In addition, in September 2012, NAFA’s executive director Phillip Russo was interviewed by Bloomberg BusinessWeek about the various ways fleet managers deal with rising fuel costs. He explained how fleet managers may buy large quantities of fuel at a locked-in price, decrease their fleet size via utilising a pool system, or invest in alternative fuels. More importantly, he showed just how important fleet managers are to the future of alternative fuels and the vehicles that will be in the mainstream down the road.

‘We’re at a stage right now where no fuel or technology has come out to be the forerunner, so everyone is trying out everything,’ he said. ‘Fleets are a natural beta test – guinea pigs, if you want to use that language. They have a controlled environment, controlled vehicles and are collecting real-life data. Give fleets incentives to purchase vehicles and they’ll be happy to test them, so that five or 10 years down the road, when the general public is out looking for a vehicle, these vehicles will have been fully tested and proven to work.’

The Beyond Fleet campaign was backed up by commercials on several radio stations including WABC in New York City, the nation’s number one media market.

NAFA says it will be working with Bloomberg BusinessWeek and WABC again in 2013, with another fleet section scheduled for April and new radio commercials airing during the first half of the year.