Truckside advertising is a highly effective way of influencing your target audience. It’s also very affordable, providing one of the lowest cost-per-thousand media options. With truckside advertising, you can have the same impact on customers while spending less on the media budget.
More than an economical option, truckside advertising is incredibly dynamic compared to static media. It’s not a conventional billboard that’s anchored in place. A mobile advertising truck moves with your target audience throughout their day.
That means your marketing message is traveling with customers as they commute around town. Or you can use truck advertising to target specific neighborhoods during special events. That will maximize your impressions.
The opportunities of truck advertising go as deep as your strategic thinking and customer data will support. However, good truck advertising strategy and planning are only half the battle. The other half is crafting a memorable truckside campaign that influences customer behavior.
Go Big with Your Moving Billboard
Truckside advertising gives your brand an enormous canvas for attracting attention. It’s no place for small ideas. We advise brands to capitalize on the scale by making the creative big and bold.
When designing your ad, keep in mind that truckside advertising is not a single canvas. It can be up to three per truck. You have the two long sides (driver and passenger sides) that can display messages. You also have a third panel on the truck’s loading door. This is often your money panel, as it gives drivers the most prolonged exposure to your message. Drivers will read it as they are waiting at a traffic light or driving behind it at freeway speeds.
Pro-Tip: A good rule of thumb is to keep the sides concise and straightforward. If you want to add something longer, like a bulleted list, do it on the back panel. That ensures the audience has more time to engage with it.
You can also use the back panel as a teaser. Consider it an introduction, or a message that sparks interest to read what’s along the side panels.
Clever creatives have done some very interesting things when considering how to use all three panels as part of a larger single message. One favorite example is when Mars bars wrapped a semi-trailer to look like a candy bar. The back panel showed the end cut open, revealing the layered deliciousness inside.
Additional Considerations for Creating Truck Ads
Think about how the advertising truck looks to customers who are far away. Also, consider how it will look up close, like when it’s parked by a sidewalk. Ask yourself, what impact and impression will it have at various distances?
Truck ads are not only seen from a far distance like static billboards. In fact, customers are typically much closer to truck ads than fixed in-place billboards.
Another difference is that truck ads are a multi-sided experience. They will be viewed from many vantage points. Challenge your creative team to see how they can play with the variables of distance and angles to create a unique and highly effective advertisement.
Make Your Message Move With LED Truck Advertising
Truck advertisements are not limited to printed images. You can utilize LED screen trucks for a more dynamic presentation. LED screen trucks feature giant TV displays mounted on the driver and passenger sides.
With LED truckside advertising, you can move images or showcase eye-catching animations. You could also rotate through a library of messages, CTAs, and photos.
The ability to rotate allows brands to tell longer stories, showcase more products, highlight additional features, and deepen customer engagement. There’s even the possibility to cycle through campaigns that target a specific demographic within unique neighborhoods.
Ultimately, digital trucks give your brand maximum flexibility and creative opportunity. It’s a benefit-rich upgrade to printed advertising trucks and may create a closer link to the style of your digital marketing campaign.
Who Benefits Most from Truckside Advertising?
Truckside advertising is a powerful “top-of-funnel” tool for building massive brand awareness and credibility within a specific geographic footprint. By transforming delivery vehicles into large-format mobile billboards, this medium is a perfect fit for any organization looking to make its brand visible, memorable, and a dominant presence in the daily lives of consumers.
The fit is especially strong for several key categories that rely on broad, repeated exposure:
- Brand Launches & Re-brands: Ideal for generating immediate name recognition and market buzz quickly. Snack and beverage brands (both alcohol and soft drinks) love truckside advertising!
- Event & Entertainment Promotions: Highly effective for building awareness for time-sensitive events like festivals, touring productions, and retail grand openings.
- Local & Regional Services: Perfect for healthcare, home services (HVAC, plumbing), and local banks to build the top-of-mind awareness crucial for when a customer has a need.
- Recruitment Campaigns: A smart way for companies to target a large pool of potential job candidates in the specific communities where they live.
Finally, it’s an ideal medium for any advertiser who wants to speak directly to a captive audience of motorists. This category includes auto insurance companies and law firms. It is also uniquely suited for public safety agencies pushing critical campaigns like “Buckle Up” or “Don’t Text and Drive.” These advertisers can deliver relevant messages at the precise moment the audience is most engaged with the subject—when they are behind the wheel.
Ready to Consider Truck Advertising?
Truckside advertisements are just one aspect of in-the-moment marketing — a strategy created by Momentara. We turn in-store, out-of-home, and event promotions into useful touchpoints that sync with the customer’s routines to encourage behaviors. The Momentara approach makes your marketing messages a welcome, impactful, and natural part of the customer’s day.
Whether your marketing needs are focused on truck ads or if you’re intrigued by the omnichannel opportunities offered by Momentara, we invite you to reach out. We bring you the technology, experience, production, scale, resources, and national presence to build certainty and programmatic success.
