"A New Spin on Billboards"

Beverage Industry
January, 2001

One way that many companies - beverage and otherwise - have beefed up their marketing efforts and are putting trucks to work as billboards. Fleet branding has been around since the early days of trucking, but recently, the ways and means of decorating vehicles has been given a boost from printing and material technology.

Trucks have become ubiquitous billboards. In some instances, the truck billboard you may pass on a highway or city street may just be that, a billboard. Or the well-designed truck panel may have no relation to the product being transport inside the truck.

Noam Shemel, Vice-President of Mobile Ad Group, New York encourages customer to look beyond beverage trucks to any local deliver truck.

"A distributor's truck may be where you want to advertise, but they only have one or two trucks, says Shemel. "We say, use other people's trucks and put your advertising on their trucks, and they can travel where you want them to go. People will think those trucks are delivering your products."

"If a distributor's trucks are not wrapped with a brand, we fill in the holes", says Shemel. But the company can also take a fleet of trucks in a certain area and put them to work for a marketer.

Popular among large soft drink companies has been pressure-sensitive vinyl. These images, with an adhesive back, are heat-sealed on to the truck. Images are usually printed in 4 pieces per side and it's about a 2-hour process to get the vinyl to adhere to the truck. In the end, the vinyl image looks like part of the truck, rivets and all.

Some industry suppliers prefer framing systems, with printed, flexible vinyl display panels that can be easily slipped in and out of the frames, providing a greater array of marketing options.

Framed vinyl displays have a number of advantages over pressure-sensitive vinyl, says Mobile Ad Group's Shemel, including ease of use, ease of replacement and ease on capital expenses.

Framing systems can be used on both sides, tops and backs of the truck, and come in one piece for each side. They also look like they are part of the truck and there are no ties or chords to hold them on, just a framing system that holds them in place. Better yet, he says, the truck doesn't have to be in the pristine condition necessary for pressure-sensitive vinyl, as the frame stands nearly one eigth-inch off the surface of the truck.

One advantage to framed vinyl may be the resolution of the printed material. With pressure-sensitive vinyl, resolution may be nearly 500 dpi. With flex-face vinyl, it's closer to 400 dpi, although Shemel says that visibility has never been an issue. "With any type of truck, you are going to see the (image) from a distance." He says.

Pricing, says Shemel, is usually more of factor for customers. For flex-face, the framing will cost roughly $2,800 per truck printing will run $800, with companies able to handle their own installations. For pressure-sensitive materials, the cost will be about $2,800, but with installation and removal, the cost can leap to $4,500.

Trucks have become so much like rolling billboards that they are rated the same way in terms of impressions made, generally in terms of 25, 50 and 100 showings, which equate to 25, 50 and 100 percent of the population in a given area viewing an advertisement during a day.

In Los Angeles, for example, a 10 x 20 billboard, similar in size to a truck panel, would require 120 billboards to attain a 25 showing, or be seen by 25 percent of the population. The rate would run an average of $900 per billboard, according to Shemel, or $108,000 per month and $324,000 for 3 months.

A truck viewed by 56,000 people in Los Angeles, which would provide the 25 showing, would require 32 trucks. Charged at 3-month increments of $1,995 per truck come to a grand total of $181,920 for the same campaign on truck sides.

According to Shemel, that averages down to $1.50 per thousand impressions, the lowest in the industry.

Shemel says 30 Sheet boards are an even tougher proposition simply because a majority of the board space won't be visible to most of the population. "You'd be hard pressed to find the 120 boards and then you can't make the impressions you were promised"

"The fleet is a new form of advertising", says Shemel "It's street level-in-your-face presence‰and it's recurring. People will believe that the products being delivered are your products. It is as simple as that. No company with only five employees has 40 trucks on the road. People don't know it's advertising. They think it is a big beverage company.' It must be good if I am seeing it delivered everywhere.' "