When it comes to building brand awareness, truck wrap advertising is an underutilized yet overperforming option.
Social media influencers and digital advertising are popular go-tos for building awareness. So are broadcast and traditional out-of-home options, including billboards and transit placements. However, truck wraps provide stellar performance and highly contextual placements at a competitive price.
To be blunt, if your brand is not capitalizing on truck wrap advertising, it’s likely investing more than is required for similar results.
Why It’s Smart to Use Truck Wrap Advertising
The data and studies supporting the use of truckside wraps are widely reported and highly compelling.
For example, truck wrap advertising can:
- Generate between 30,000 and 70,000 daily vehicular impressions
- Be over 2.5 times more effective than static billboards
- Have a 97% recall rate
While compelling, those aren’t the only numbers that capture the attention of media buyers, franchises, and brand marketing teams. The cost per thousand impressions (CPM) for truck wrap advertising is ~$0.15–$0.45. According to many resources, wrapped trucks deliver 38x more impressions per dollar than traditional advertising channels like billboards, print, or radio.
Perhaps the most compelling statistic supporting truck wrap advertising is offered by 3M. They found vehicle marketing resulted in a 97% message recall compared to 19% for stationary signs.
The takeaway is clear: truck wrap advertising works, but how can businesses make truck wraps work effectively for their brand?
Seven Keys for Successful Truck Wrap Advertising
1. Find a Reliable Partner
The truck wrap industry has been tumultuous during the past decade. Lots of companies have popped up only to vanish quickly. Disappointingly, there are also some unscrupulous operators across the nation. Why? Truck wraps seem like a simple business opportunity with a low bar to entry. It tempts people to jump in and make a buck. However, it’s not a simple business, and the bar to entry is high for companies that intend to do things the right way.
How can you find the right truck wrap partner? Here are essential details to ask about before signing a contract:
- How long have they been providing truck wrap advertising?
- How many markets do they serve?
- How do they source their trucks?
- How long have they worked with their truck fleet partners?
- How do they ensure proof of performance?
- Do they have GPS truck tracking?
- Do they use UV-resistant vinyl?
- Are they really a broker that outsources installation work?
- Do they offer design support?
- Do they provide truck-accurate templates?
- What do recent customers say about the experience?
2. Use a Professional Graphic Designer
Out-of-Home ads don’t need to be high art, but they do require a professional designer. Be sure you work with partners whose on-staff designers understand moving out-of-home advertising and are familiar with the color, scale, type, message priority, and accessibility standards that will make an ad maximally effective. Also, find a partner who is deeply experienced working with the complexities and subtle variations among truck types. Mastering those details is a reflection on your brand.
3. Insist on Professional Truck Wrap Installers
Installing truck wraps is complicated, as no two trucks are quite alike, even within the same fleet. For your truck wrap advertising to appear as intended, the seams must align correctly, the panels need to be carefully adhered, and close attention should be paid to any cutouts. Miss just one of those factors, and your truck wrap advertising will come up short of its potential. Make sure your partner employs experienced installers and isn’t subcontracting the work out.
4. Focus on Markets, Not Routes to Maximize Exposure and Impact
Consider the geographic areas you want to impact. You should expect advertising truck routes to cover a large geographic area with routes that vary. Advertisers sometimes get hung up on specific routes or roads, but the fact is that continually shifting routes allows brands to push their exposure into new territories while occasionally getting hyper-local coverage too.
Ultimately, truck advertising is for expanding your reach and awareness, not geo-targeting. For example, say you’re selling a product widely used online rather than at a retail location. In that case, location matters far less than the number of impressions. Your best truck routes will be on high-density highways, freeways, and commuter routes for maximum exposure. The same is true for products sold in stores with wide distribution. Think of an energy drink. Their distribution is seemingly everywhere. So there again, location matters less than exposure and awareness.
Ultimately, our best advice is to rely on the truck advertising company. They will have years of insights, data, and case studies to help guide decisions regarding route options and the number of trucks to deploy.
5. Keep Things Simple
Brevity is a necessity. Your truck wrap creative should be concise and easy to decipher at 60 mph or in just a few passing seconds. Large text, short call to action, and easily identifiable images/pictures will help audiences understand your message and take action. Truck wraps are not a place for lists, lots of details, or complicated images.
6. Emphasize the Call to Action
Building awareness is great, but giving customers a way to follow up is even better. Be sure to provide a mechanism for customer response. That can be as simple as a web address (pizzaprince.com), a simple phone number (555-Pizza), or social media information (@pizzaprince). You may also consider using QR codes. These are very effective in some areas, but also have limitations. We like QR codes, but would not advise making them the only CTA.
7. Keep Messaging Fresh
New messages attract new eyes. By changing out your message and creative, you provide a new opportunity to attract customer attention.
By culling data from Forbes and Statista, we find that people are bombarded with six to ten thousand ads per day. Of those, only 100 to 200 are noticed by a person, and only 10-15 ads can be recalled. That’s why it’s important to freshen up your marketing messages. You are always in a brutal fight for attention and recall.
How often should ads be refreshed? There’s no quick answer, but a good rule of thumb is at least once a year. If wrapped trucks are an ongoing part of your marketing, you may want to consider quarterly updates. If you decide to make frequent changes to your creative, we suggest you assess changes to response rates and other performance data. Analytics improve your creative choices by zeroing in on the best-performing messages and CTAs.
Avoid the Pitfalls of Truck Wrap Advertising
Proof of Performance Matters More than Ever
Trucks are out in the elements. That includes sun, rain, snow, road salt, mud, and more. Ads can weather or be damaged by graffiti. Ensure your partner is monitoring, inspecting, and, if necessary, refreshing ads regularly to maintain a professional appearance. It’s unlikely you can inspect each truck yourself; that’s okay and not expected. A good truck wrap vendor will provide periodic reports with photos validating that the trucks are in service, as well as the current appearance of your ads.
Don’t Overlook Legal Requirements
A truck wrap is an ad; therefore, it may have to comply with local ordinances. The vehicle must also comply with all state and federal rules of road transit. That is where a professional truck-media partner becomes your ally. They will ensure that your marketing and trucks meet all pertinent standards, thereby avoiding legal issues.
Don’t Skip Ad Message Testing
Truck wraps are a great place to conduct A/B testing. Because it’s affordable like digital ads, you can employ the same testing measures to achieve maximum return on ad spend (ROAS). This works for digital trucks and printed vinyl truck wraps. You can adjust the entire truck design, or just one of the panels. Some trucks might even use A/B testing on a single truck that showcases two different panel sides featuring unique CTAs.
Testing different messages, product shots, or CTAs will rapidly identify what approach is most effective.
Ideally, the best way to A/B test is to have the versioned trucks split across markets (A runs in area X, B runs in area Y). Splitting the creative options across regions eliminates cross-contamination of the versions. Splitting across regions provides the purest, most accurate data.
Ready to Improve Your Out-of-Home Truck Wrap Advertising?
Creating compelling truck wraps is only 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 wraps 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.
