There I was at a cafe on 1st Avenue in downtown Seattle when a colleague noticed something peculiar passing by.
“What is that? Did you see that? It looks like an armored truck, but it is Amazon,” she said.
The beige vehicle looked different from Amazon’s lime green grocery delivery trucks, so I sprinted down the street to see what it was about.
What did I find? Not much.
Just a truck with the words “Treasure Truck” on top of the cab, and big Amazon logo. Words on the body of the truck said: What’s on the truck today?” It also boasts a logo for Amazon Prime, which led me to believe this could be some sort of enhanced delivery mechanism for Prime customers.
We reached out to Amazon, and they aren’t saying much about what’s inside the truck or the purpose it serves.
But it is an obvious promotional stunt given that the company has already set up a Twitter handle and Facebook page for the truck. It also just released a YouTube video, with a description saying that the truck will be part of the “Amazon Mobile Shopping app you may already have on your mobile phone.”
On the mobile app, there is a setting that allows users to “Enable Treasure Truck.” You can also text the word “truck” to the number 292966 to get more information, but that text just resulted in an automated response that said “Amazon Treasure Truck is coming to Seattle!” and then directed users to this web site that had little information.
Amazon has used trucks in the past to hide “special deliveries” for customers as part of promotional efforts, and it has even hidden a Nissan Rogue inside a giant Amazon locker in San Francisco.
We’re not the only one’s who’ve seen this odd vehicle cruising around Seattle. Folks turned to Twitter to ask what it was all about.
Amazon Treasure Truck rolling down 4th Ave in Seattle. I have no idea what it is, though! pic.twitter.com/tZPNg6OAYC
— SudsyMaggie (@SudsyMaggie) June 22, 2015
Stay tuned.
