Written by: David Leo and Alma Escudero
Mobile advertising has become one of the most successful and creative mediums for advertising campaigns over the past few years with companies like Walmart, Shoppers Drug Mart and OLG turning to companies like Movia to help expand their branding reach with their use of out-of-home advertising (OOH).
OOH advertising can come in many shapes and forms including vehicle wraps, bus shelters and subway panels, although the two most recognizable forms of OOH advertisements are Billboard truck ads and Delivery truck ads. Both forms of advertising might sound similar in practice as both involve large vehicles but there is a set of benefits and drawbacks that come with either type of truck advertisement that your brand should be aware of before any engines are turned on.
In this article, we will outline the key factors that distinguish billboard truck advertising and delivery truck advertising before going over some pros and cons to each form to help our readers make an informed choice as to which form of mobile advertising would work better for their company.
Billboard Truck Advertising
A mobile billboard is a billboard placed on a truck that drives around town, showing your message to drivers, pedestrians, and people in nearby buildings. You can park the truck in a central location, where it remains visible. You might hear mobile billboards called billboard trucks or truck advertising they all refer to the same type of advertisement.
The medium offers flexibility. Mobile billboards can zigzag across the city or target a carefully geo-targeted area where your target demographic resides or drives. Trucks may need to stay on the move all day or drive off after carefully planned 15-minute breaks, depending on the regulations in your location.
Instead of posting your billboard high above a populated city street where thousands of people will walk past daily, in the case of a billboard truck you can take your advertisement right to your customer. Using a billboard truck you can guarantee that your brand will be seen by tens of thousands of potential customers as they are driving down busy highways, getting caught in traffic and have nowhere else to look.
Mobile billboards can also be parked at different locations which can be catered to the tastes of your customers. If you’re a sports equipment manufacturer, you can park it at local arenas/stadiums/fields across the city or say if your brand sells trendy clothes you can make sure potential customers know where to shop when they are visiting a mall where you have a store located at.
The possibilities for billboard truck advertisements are endless, and through this provides more flexibility on how to promote your company. Higher amounts of flexibility can also be useful for how creative your advertisements can be.
In addition to having a static/vinyl billboard, you can choose to equip a digital billboard instead. Having a digital billboard can have it’s own advantages should you decide to use it these include:
- Visibility at Night Time: This is the most obvious advantage as now you can see your ad illuminated under the night sky on a screen, instead of mainly relying on sunlight to promote your message during the day. While you can install lights for static billboards, it will, however, lose some of its effect, but with a mobile billboard you can have your message promoted 24/7.
- Interactive Screens: Imagine if you could combine the creativity and interactivity of a television ad with the OOH reach of a static billboard, that is what a mobile billboard truck can provide for your company. Instead of having one message displayed, why not have more than one? Your creativity can lead to a whole new world of interactive activities for the public. Maybe you include a section outfront of your parked truck for people to come and sit and take in your product. If you’re promoting a video game company, let potential customers test the game out for themselves.
While you could imagine that the price for a mobile billboard campaign would be pricier than renting out a static billboard spot, you will find that the opposite is actually true. In large U.S Metropolitan cities like Los Angeles and New York, a mobile billboard truck rental will cost anywhere between $1,800-$2,000 a day and outsourcing creative and production costs can add on an extra $800-$1,000 as compared to the $6,000 a month for a four-week traditional billboard.
Spending up to $2,000 a day on a billboard truck rental might seem exorbitant for many but the CPM (Cost Per Thousand) rate is amongst the lowest across all traditional advertising metrics. The Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), the leading industry resource for outdoor inbound and outbound marketing, fleet wraps (i.e. mobile billboards) carry the lowest CPM of any other type of advertising at only $0.77 for 1,000 impressions.
For as many advantages a mobile billboard can provide, there are also a few drawbacks that come with the medium.
The first major drawback with billboard trucks is that it can potentially be a distraction to drivers on the road. Having a large, colorful billboard sitting in front of you while driving, does lead to the potential in causing accidents, especially if you decide to have a digital screen on the side of your billboard truck. This type of advertisement could be seen as working a little bit too well.
Another drawback for this advertising medium is that mobile billboards, as well as delivery trucks, are not sustainable for the environment. The goal for mobile truck advertisers is to create conversation while minimizing our carbon footprints. Whether it is concerns about vehicle emissions or contributions to road congestion, unless mobile truck advertisers take active steps to counter these issues, this option can be less environmentally sound.
Delivery Truck Advertising
Advertising on trucks is one of the greatest methods to show your brand in a unique way but, what exactly is Delivery Truck Advertising?
These ads are billboards wrapped across the seen faces of shipping trucks. This effective advertising device strengthens your brand with a huge layout advert area placed proper smack dab at the aspect of industrial vehicles. High-effect viewers suggest brand popularity throughout a market, city, state, or even throughout the country.
Contrary to other Out-of-home advertising methods, truck advertising is well known to have an outstanding impact on content retention and visibility, due to, the many regions it can be shown every day.
So, why should I get a Truck advertisement?
Audience reach:
One of the biggest concerns of a brand it is audience reach and how are they going to make it happen. But there are plenty of ways to keep your name in the head of a customer, truck advertising is a very useful tool to keep your brand in people’s minds. Besides static billboards that are just seen by the people around a certain area, truck advertising have that little extra with its mobility and the possibility to get noticed by people from other regions. Due to the character of this type of advertising, people have a tendency to stare, scan, and take pics of those banners for better retention.
Budget-friendly
Truck advertising is considered an “affordable” type of OOH, way cheaper than a traditional billboard. That is why many medium and small-sized companies choose truck ads as their primary way to reach audiences. Even though the cost of truck advertising varies and it is dependent on the region the truck would be in the le if affordable.
Value On Investment:
The main goal of advertising is to promote your brand and make individuals take action. Recently research has proven that advertising on trucks helps you get a higher return on value; unlike static billboards which after a while the number of impressions and conversion rate start decreasing. Nevertheless, with your truck advertisement, you can be sure about getting a high ROI, high-level impressions, and a conversion rate due to, it moving from one area to another.
Targeting geographically:
As we know, the major purpose of truck advertising is brand recognition. It is common to forget about mobile or social media ads as you may easily erase them or change the app to another software or event. But with delivery truck advertising, you can not skip it or simply ignore the ad, especially, If the advert is innovative and visual, which catches the attention of the potential client and makes them focus on the advert and gives it more than a second look. Following what we mentioned before, we have the ability to target nearby locations (the best for your company) with the perfect campaign to catch your target’s attention. Experts said that delivery vehicles reach consumers at that critical point of purchase.
Customized Ad campaign:
Truck advertising is well-known for adding extra value and is more advantageous than other advertising techniques. That it is why the biggest win of a company is brand openness. This implies your enterprise is on a truck and is meandering through the town for a truly long term at a time. One other good thing about this type of ad is that it is not limited to one category, which means that is flexible for all types of brands and you can customize it to your own needs. This is a very versatile ad, so you can arrange changes more easily than with other platforms.
If you want to maximize your ad take into count these elements:
– Creativity: Use pictures, colors, and textures to make a catchy design that captures people’s attention. You need to make them remember your brand, and make it memorable for them.
– Words: Not just with a good design, you can get the eyes of your audience on you. It is important too also, give them the perfect phrase to glue it into people’s minds. Since you only have a few seconds or minutes (in a big traffic problem) you need to come up with a phrase to use as a hook. Experts said catchy phrases make content memorable
For example, everyone knows Coca-cola, every time you see one of those red trucks on the street you know the brand, and that is the result of a memorable brand. Can you remember their slogan? Open Happiness.
But not just the words, in Christmas they make their trucks festive and catch people’s attention, they work with colors, textures, and pictures to make them memorable.
Conclusion:
A mobile billboard might be more helpful with certain types of brands, even when it has a high amount of flexibility. Remember that the two big wins of this type of ad are: Night time visibly and interactive screens.
On the other hand, Delivery Truck advertising is a good method of marketing with a high return on investment, it gives you higher visibility and the opportunity to get a faster response to your ad.
Now, some campaigns will work better with mobile billboards some of them with truck advertising, or maybe a combination of both but understanding what is better for your brand is crucial to get the results you are looking for.
Thus, now you know the advantage of putting your message in the eye of a large number of people. Which one is the best suitable for your brand?
