Amazon’s beloved Treasure Truck finally ran out of road in 2022, after about a seven-year run. But Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores and an early champion of the deals-on-wheels concept, once worried that Marshawn Lynch was going to crash the party just as it got rolling.
In a new episode of his “Learn and Be Curious” podcast (below), Herrington recalled a December 2016 promotional event for the Treasure Truck in Seattle in which Lynch, the onetime Seattle Seahawks running back, got behind the wheel.
Herrington remembered Lynch asking if he could drive the truck, and someone said yes. Herrington said he could still picture the keys going into Lynch’s hands.
“We had the press there and it was a big hurly burly and there was all these people running around,” Herrington said in a conversation with Kandace Kapps, director of Amazon’s sub-same day ops integration. “And he gets in this Treasure Truck, starts driving it … and all I could imagine was, ‘This is how the Treasure Truck enterprise ends, when Marshawn Lynch crashes it into some crowd at the end.’”
With fans outside CenturyLink Field (now Lumen Field) chanting “Beast Mode! Beast Mode!” and Lynch bopping to hip-hop music in the driver’s seat, the short drive near the stadium did not turn to disaster. Herrington said that in addition to being an excellent running back, Lynch was also an excellent driver and “all went well.”
Lynch, who spent six seasons in Seattle and helped the team win a Super Bowl in 2014, was on hand that day to hand out a Beast Mode-skinned Amazon Echo and Beast Mode Hat for $139.99. He signed autographs and handed out Skittles.
His driving skills have been famously captured on video before the Treasure Truck episode and since:
- In October 2006, Lynch commandeered a medical cart and took it for a joyride around the field at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Calif., after Cal beat the Washington Huskies, 31-24. Weaving in and out of players and coaches to celebrate the win, it was classic Lynch behavior before Seattle came to love him.
- For an episode of Amazon Prime’s “Thursday Night Football” last fall, in which Lynch does a segment called “‘N Yo’ City,” Lynch tried a variety of off-road vehicles during a visit to stunt performer Travis Pastrana’s compound. He even ended up upside down in one four-wheeler mishap.
GeekWire first spotted the Treasure Truck in Seattle in June 2016. The first official deal was an inflatable paddleboard for $99 — 79% off the regular price of $476.99.
Customers were alerted to such deals via text message and during the heyday of the traveling trucks, they could reserve an item through Amazon’s mobile app and then go to a location to grab their purchase. Once the truck’s supply was exhausted, the deal was done.
When the Treasure Truck program — which grew to a fleet of more than 100 vehicles across 29 U.S. cities — did come to an end, it wasn’t Lynch’s fault. It was the pandemic in 2020 and then the reality that deals online sold a lot more items than deals facilitated by a glorified ice cream truck.
“We probably should have figured this out ahead of time,” Herrington said. “And all of a sudden the light kind of went off, it’s like, wow, one thing people love more than coming to the truck and picking up all this stuff is having us deliver to their home.”
