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Trooper Bob's emoji commercial wins Emmy


Trooper Bob won the Emmy on Saturday. This story was aired last week.{p}{/p}
Trooper Bob won the Emmy on Saturday. This story was aired last week.

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It all started with a tweet. His message is simple and sobering. With three emojis Lieutenant Bob Beres, better known by his twitter handle Trooper Bob, is able to say don't drink and drive.

Now he's celebrating after winning his first Emmy at the 2018 Southeast Emmy Awards on Saturday.

Trooper Bob is taking a modern day approach to an age old problem. He's getting his message to the masses with emojis, and a little help from his mom.

"I asked my mom, my mom's Hungarian," said Trooper Bob. "I said what do you think of this? She said well that says you drink and drive police will get you. I said if my mom can get this, the world can get this."

Trooper Bob says the language is simple and the message universal, "the mission is to stop drunk drivers from being on the roadways, and get them to not drink and drive."

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 331 people died in drunk driving wrecks in South Carolina two years ago. So Trooper Bob wanted to drive the message home even more.

In 2016, his emoji campaign to the small screen. "We're excited because our emoji commercial for driving under the influence for [South Carolina's Sober or Slammer campaign] was nominated for an Emmy."

Now Trooper Bob is an Emmy winner, but he says there's only one thing that matters.

"When someone comes up to me and says, 'you know I was gonna get behind the wheel, but then I thought about your message and I wanna be around for my family, and I wanna be around for New Years and Christmas. That message sunk in and kept me from getting behind the wheel.' That's what it's all about"

His first emoji tweet was in 2015. It reached 155,000 people.

Today Trooper Bob has more than 21,000 Twitter followers, but the job is far from over. Trooper Bob continues to encourage safe driving in his own way.

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