DETERMINING WHERE (OR WHEN) THE RUBBER ACTUALLY MEETS (OR HITS) THE ROAD

An examination of a jingle that’s clearly a metaphor, treated as a proverb, yet argued to be nothing more than a cliché.

I get asked nearly every day how I came to name the agency Rubber Road Marketing. For those happy with the short answer, its simple: I wanted a somewhat actionable name that stood for something I believe in; it also had to be fun and interesting to share; partly to break the ice but also to give the firm a personality (let’s forgo “brand” here) on which to stand and grow.

After considering ideas for several weeks, I chose to adopt a name based on the phrase “where the rubber meets the road”.  We used the term often and quite effectively at Feld Entertainment to signify and/or challenge the consequences of a proposed marketing initiative, the next touring property, or other new program which would impact the company – or more directly, the field marketing and sales teams located throughout the Continent.

The expression has seemingly taken on a substantially greater importance in this year 2009, as most everything we do in our professional lives is judged by the almighty ROI and the requirement that results be measurable.  In short, the smart clients want to cut through the BS and focus on how to best achieve their end goals.  And so, I chose a name that reflects my desire to be a true difference-maker to my clients – part of their “solution-team”, so to speak.

In researching the phrase, I ultimately found it to be somewhat mysterious – not only in its origin, but also in its usage, including the wide range of users themselves.

ORIGIN

The genesis of the phrase is (unofficially) credited to a national advertising “jingle” used throughout the 1960s and 1970s by the former Firestone Tire and Rubber Company.

Wherever wheels are rolling,
No matter what the load,
The name that’s known is Firestone
Where the rubber meets the roads

Given that Firestone kept it running for nearly 20 years, a generation of Americans became well acquainted with the tune. At some point – the exact date of which is still to be determined, the phrase “where the rubber meets the road” became part of our lexicon. It also reached across all disciplines: business, religion, sports, education, relationships, etc. The phrase was even chosen as the title of the first cut on Meatloaf’s 1995 “Welcome To The Neighborhood” album.

DEFINITION

Despite its widespread use, a cursory review of reference books strongly suggests that the definition of the phrase (or “saying”) remains unsettled. To illustrate my point, the author of the definition in WikiAnswers acknowledges that the definition changes with context, but only after sharing four positions of what it could mean and then still adding “or something along those lines”. A recent LinkedIn discussion devoted to the use of the phrase likewise piqued my curiosity after each participant shared a different interpretation and example.

An additional review of literary texts in which the phrase was used (made possible thanks to our friends at Google) reveals an astounding array of uses by each writer. While context is indeed required to give form to the term, the versatility ascribed to the phrase necessarily precludes a simple or general definition. In short, the phrase appears to mean several things, and remains open to further study and clarification – much as the WikiAnswers definition states, though awkwardly.

I used all of the ways others have applied the phrase to create four (4) related, but distinct, uses of “where (or when) the rubber meets (or hits) the road”.

1. The Implementation:

• when theory is put into practice/action
• when ideas become reality
• when plans and convictions become actions
• when the petal hits the metal
• when things start moving
• at the launch (execution)
• when you put something to work

2. The Practical:

• where you venture beyond goals and focus on objectives and measurement
• does it work? did we get results?
• it works or it doesn’t
• where we find out what happens
• where we go from “talking the talk” to “walking the walk”
• bringing the conversation around to results

3. The Significance of the Moment

• when it comes down to it
• when it gets serious
• the moment of truth
• the heart of the matter
• the most important point for something
• where we separate the women from the girls (feel free to substitute “the kids from the adults”, “the winners from the losers”, or “those that can from those that do”).

4. The Practitioner

• by whom the work is actually done (workers who take direction from executives)
• the work itself

To further demonstrate how hard it is to apply a simple definition to “when/where the rubber hits the road”, the following is a short list of examples I’ve come across for how the expression was applied. In some instances, the example fits nicely within one of the four “buckets” above; oftentimes, however, the phrase share 2, 3 or even 4 of them.

• A child’s birth is “when the rubber meets the road” for fatherhood
• Right to abortion is “when the rubber meets the road” to determine if women are equal citizens
• Teachers are “where the rubber meets the road” for children and their development
• Jury instructions are “where the rubber meets the road” for the law
• Clinical trials is “when the rubber meets the road” for pharmacological studies
• Incurring debt is “when/where the rubber meets the road” for anyone starting a business
• Daily life and personal practice is “when/where the rubber meets the road” for religious followers
• Employees are “where the rubber meets the road” for any brand management (they take a company’s story to the streets and connect the directly with customers)
• When there’s a crisis is “when the rubber meets the road” for relationships
• The “race” for an athlete is “when the rubber meets the road” and they see how good they are (or aren’t)
• Once the political race is over, governing is “when the rubber meets the road” for any politician.
• Sex is “when the rubber meets the road” for intimacy.
• For the condom, its during sexual intercourse “when the rubber meets the road” (the point being that it either breaks or slips 1 in 6 times).
• Making a sale is “where the rubber meets the road” and your business ultimately succeeds or fail.
• The ability to stick to the diet is “where the rubber meets the road” for weight control (i.e., where your fork hits your food).
• The ability of Nike to compete is “where the rubber meets the road” in tough economic times (Brandweek article)
• Publishers are “where the rubber meets the road” when researching children’s books of African American interest
• Tires are “where the rubber meets the road” (love the literal application in a self-help auto-mechanic book)

As a quick aside, you can see that “when” and “where” are often interchangeable in the phrase. I actually came across a few folks who chastised others for using “when” here, as it isn’t how the original Firestone jingle read. My take is that the phrase has moved beyond “where”, and that both/either words are correct depending on the reference. Likewise, the expression is often stated as when the rubber “hits” the road (as opposed to “meets” the road). You can argue the literal differences of these words, and whether “meets” is technically correct because of the origin, but there’s nothing to indicate a varied meaning in the phrase as a result of using one or the other.

Idiom, Metaphor, Proverb, Adage and/or simply a Cliche?

Now that we’ve started to give some concrete form to the phrase, I thought it might be appropriate to point out that there are scholars (loosely defined in the 2.0 world, as we all know) who do not believe the phrase adds value to our communication – that is, it’s simply another weak cliche in our vocabulary; a phrase considered so trite, that it’s simply not worth saying. Representing the top all-time business cliche candidates are the usual suspects – “win-win”, “think outside the box”, “hit the ground running”, “giving 110%”, and “putting out fires”.

This is all subjective, of course, but I’d argue that, despite being birthed from a TV advertisement, “where the rubber meets the road” is NOT just another corny line. Instead, it is a practical, flexible phrase that gives unique, elevated focus to a place OR a time OR a person/group of singular importance. There are perhaps better examples to support this point, but I was struck, for instance, at how Wikipedia itself uses the phrase in defining its own Help Desk. By applying the phrase, Wikipedia gives the reader a greater sense of importance to the Help Desk; skeptics might call it self-importance, but – from Wikipedia’s viewpoint, it effectively communicates to the reader how significant that role is.

Whether it is in fact a “cliche”, there are other descriptive terms which can be applied. First, “when/where the rubber meets/hits the road” is clearly an idiom; that is, it’s a phrase whose meaning cannot be made sense of from the the literal definition, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only through common use. Examples include “fit as a fiddle”, “kick the bucket” and “go Dutch”. Idioms are not usually translatable. Indeed, a recent forum on WordReferenc.com included a request to translate “when the rubber hits the road” in to French and makes the point; while the participants seemed satisfied with their suggestions, they moved to find a phrase which corresponded in its intent, and not a literal translation.

Second, the phrase is clearly a metaphor. There are indeed instances where the phrase is used literally (the chapter on tires in a self-help automotive book is perhaps most guilty here, but I have to give credit to the editor who used the expression to label a story recounting a recent, unknown dumping of sneakers on a Miami highway).

Third, although people often say “the ‘proverbial’ rubber meets the road”, I’d say that’s a misstatement because the phrase doesn’t qualify as a proverb – a phrase or sentence that has become a common saying, and generally elucidates some truth. Examples here include “there is no substitute for hard work” and “don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” To make sure I got it right, Richard Nordquist the Grammar Guide on About.com confirmed (on a Sunday afternoon, no less – thank you, Richard) that “the phrase points to a condition or circumstance (the heart of the matter — to use another idiom) but by itself doesn’t appear to express a general truth or offer a nugget of (apparent) wisdom.” And despite being a metaphor, this same logic disqualifies it as an adage as well.

Yes, time to tackle something else…

John Paul Basile of Rubber Road Marketing