When most people think of advertising to consumers on congested highways and city streets, they think of conventional things like billboards, small fliers, and ads on the side of mass transit vehicles. While those things are all rather effective, and pretty easy to pursue, they’re increasingly being outdone by full vehicle wraps that take a message mobile and send it into areas where it can be most effective. This unconventional method of advertising opens up great new possibilities for businesses, and there are several reasons to consider it instead of traditional billboards or banners.
1. It’s Unconventional, Prompting a Double-Take
When people are out and about during the day, they typically expect to see a few things. Billboards fade into the scenery along the side of the road, largely ignored. Smaller ads on mass transit vehicles are rarely glanced at. Even fellow pedestrians aren’t worth noting. But unconventional things are. The stranger things in society always seem to attract attention. Luckily, full vehicle wraps are certainly more of an exception than a rule, and that makes them eye-catching and worth look at twice.
The double-take that occurs when most people see a wrapped car is quite valuable. At first, it’s just a car. Then it turns into, “what exactly is on that car?” Passersby look twice, examining the car, and trying to take in the message that has come to dominate the vehicle’s appearance. In the process, they just learned the advertiser’s name, products, mission, and even color scheme. They internalized the brand without deliberately doing so, and they’re bound to go on a quest for more products or information with their smartphones or computers as soon as they’re able.
2. Wrapping a Vehicle Turns it Into a Demographic Powerhouse
Online advertising is a really effective way to turn a marketing message into a successful campaign, largely because it offers people very specific controls that will display ads only to those users who fit certain interest groups, browsing patterns, or demographic criteria. The same cannot be said of most roadside advertising options. When things like billboards are designed and deployed, they are done so in a way that has mass appeal to every kind of driver. Young and old drivers, male and female, driver and passenger, all must fine just a single billboard message to be appealing and worth investigating. This is a waste of money, generally, and it can harm an advertising budget.
That’s not the case with vehicle wraps. These new forms of mass advertising actually allow for demographic-targeted ads that bring online efficiency to offline promotions. The “how” of this demographic targeting is actually quite simple. Neighborhoods can be broken down by income, average age level, the presence (or lack thereof) of children or extended family members. Schools, daycares, playgrounds, gyms, and other amenities, can all be spot-targeted.
With smart planning, the vehicle with an advertising wrap can be sent into those areas that a company most believes will generate interest and sales. Affluent neighborhoods can be targeted for upscale brands, while fitness-related brands can send their wrapped car to jogging trails, neighborhoods with gyms, or those areas with younger overall residents or shoppers. It means more effective offline advertising, and that’s good for both budgets and profits.
3. Dynamic and Quickly Changed
Vehicle wraps are not permanent, and they do not do any damage to the vehicle that sports them. They’re exceedingly easy to apply, and quite affordable, and they can be changed just as quickly. That means that, unlike an elevated billboard, it’s possible to spend just a few hours transforming an old campaign into one that again generates double-takes and renewed interest among consumers. Much like the dynamic nature of online banner or contextual advertising, vehicle wraps can be changed at a moment’s notice to become more effective, more seasonal, or more appealing to a different kind of consumers.
Go with 21st Century Approaches to Traditional Advertising
With the right attention to detail and messaging, vehicle wraps provide an ability to be unconventional in terms of targeting, messaging, and appearance. They provide a way to bring online specificity to offline branding, and that can only mean good things for most businesses. When paired with more traditional means of offline advertising, they offer the best way to promote a message or product while drawing attention and curiosity.