Since it was unveiled last weekend, the trailer for “The Great American Road Trip,” the five-part reality TV show starring the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, his wife and their nine kids, has driven an unexpected amount of attention his way.

The series, meant to encourage Americans to get in the car and see the country in celebration of America’s 250th, has become a target for unhappiness over rising gas prices (“Brutally out of touch,” the former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg decried on X) and the subject of a debate about departmental ethics.

It is also the latest example of what is starting to look a lot like a trend toward celluloid self-branding by Trump officials and family members.

After the ad campaign starring Kristi Noem during her term as secretary of homeland security, which featured her as a cowgirl at Mount Rushmore, and after “Melania,” the documentary by the first lady that chronicled her preparations for her husband’s second inauguration in exhaustive decorative detail, it was probably only a matter of time before other Trump figures seized the chance to package themselves for posterity.

It makes sense, after all: This is a president who created and honed his image via TV. Little wonder those around him are trying to do the same via their own spinoffs. Why not a cabinet member whose résumé includes “The Real World” and who was a Fox News contributor and a Fox Business host?

The new series is created by a nonprofit called The Great American Road Trip, founded last year by Tori Barnes, a former lobbyist and executive for the U.S. Travel Association, and supported by sponsors that include Boeing and Google. Though Barnes did not respond directly to questions about who came up with the series, she did say in an email to The New York Times that the “organization invited the secretary and his family to join us to increase visibility and to help inspire Americans to get out and see America.”