Looking for some advice?
Despite the ongoing challenges presented by Covid19, we’re here to help. If you’re working on a large format project, and have any questions, please get in touch via our contact form – our expert project managers are on hand to answer any of your questions.
For smaller brands, marketing is always a challenge. While the rise of online advertising has provided a tantalising new platform, for smaller brands, it’s harder than ever to stand out – budgets are usually tight, and the need for both exposure and credibility result in many small brands turning to outdoor advertising. While this is an extremely competitive field, there could be a solution that many businesses might not have considered: truck media advertising.
For online retailers, new or small businesses, and brands offering products people use on a regular basis, advertising on the sides of trucks operating national and local routes can be one of the best investments in outdoor marketing. But why? What makes truck media better than something more traditional, like a billboard?
Read on…
What is truck media advertising?
Truck media advertising involves installing a series of printed graphics, usually vinyl, onto large trucks – these then follow their delivery route, acting as moving advertisements. The graphics can be installed on the side, front, and rear of the trucks, and can target both local and national routes.
For several years, PressOn have been working with truck media supplier In Your Space. We print and install the graphics for many of In Your Space’s campaigns, and we recently sat down with their founder and CEO Jonathan Bramley – his insight has helped us to understand precisely why truck media is so valuable to smaller brands in particular, and we’ve used a few quotes from the interview in this article.
So here are some of the main reasons why truck media is the perfect advertising solution for smaller brands:
Truck advertising is perfectly suited to online businesses
More and more brands are operating predominantly or even exclusively online. The omnipresence of the internet has meant that clothes and fashion retailers, entrepreneurs with unique products, and other small businesses have turned their focus online.
But without a physical presence, it can be hard to establish a reputation, and make your business a tangible entity to your target market.
This is where truck advertising comes in. When we see branded trucks driving on the motorway, or through our cities, we make the immediate connection that the business is established and viable. When it comes to online businesses specifically, it makes them seem like a physical entity – which qualifies them further.
With online brands, particularly new ones, there can be a number of doubts that need to be overcome – such as the viability, security, and reliability of their service. By using truck advertising, you can give the consumer that all-important reassurance, and enabling them to see you as the trustworthy company you are.
Truck media offers massive exposure
It can be easy to assume that a billboard placed in a busy city centre will attract more attention, and lead to more exposure, than any other form of outdoor advertising. But this is one of the most common misconceptions about the potential reach of truck media – and it actually outweighs other platforms significantly.
There are 20 million users on the UK motorway network every week – and when you consider that a truck campaign can feature on hundreds of vehicles, the potential for widespread exposure is clear.
There’s also the importance of reinforcement – while someone walking past the same ad every day on their commute will have it reinforced over time, the ad will only be there for a matter of weeks (usually), and the consumer will usually only view the ad for a matter of seconds (or at most, a couple of minutes).
With truck advertising, the consumer usually has the ad in view for a much longer time than a static ad – potentially a matter of minutes, particularly during slow traffic periods. There are also fewer distractions on the road, meaning your audience will be able to pay your graphics much more attention (printed trucks are one of the only/most interesting things to look at on a long, slow-moving stretch of motorway!).
“Printed trucks aren’t static like billboards, and the window of time for which they’re within the sight of consumers is far higher” – Jonathan Bramley
The result? You make more of an impression, to far more people, over a much longer period of time.
Truck advertising makes your brand appear larger than it is
Many small brands can’t afford to have their own large fleet of trucks. Even if they’re active in their deliveries, it doesn’t always look that way. Truck media gives these kind of companies a sense of tangibility, and makes them a ubiquitous physical presence in the offline world.
As Jonathan Bramley puts it…
“It lets smaller brands look bigger and it makes online-only brands look tangible. It can make a new product launch look instantly successful and popular, and if you consider the advertising theory of the ‘concept of social proof’, it’s invaluable. The more something appears to be popular, the more popular it becomes.”
This concept of social proof is a valuable consideration. If you had never heard of a business, but started seeing trucks with its branding on regularly, you’d naturally assume that it must be an established, successful company, making regular deliveries. Which means other people must be ordering from it regularly.
And when you needed the product or service it offered? You’d be far more likely to trust a company you regarded as well-established, recognisable, and making regular deliveries, than a business you once saw on a billboard.
Truck media is hugely cost effective
It’s always a little risky to try and make any definitive claims about pricing, and the actual budget of your project will naturally depend on all kinds of variables; but when it comes to what you get for your money, truck media proves to be one of the most cost-effective forms of outdoor advertising available.
This is down largely to the amount of time your graphics are out on the road, and therefore the duration of your campaign. Most truck fleets livery their vehicles every 9-12 months, meaning rather than a few weeks, your graphics could be in view for an entire year – or longer.
There are trucks that drive 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, so with the right fleet choice there is really no better way to increase brand visibility over a long period of time. It’s also, for this reason, very scalable – from smaller local fleets to large national routes, once the graphics are installed (which is a one-off cost), the endorsements they offer will continue to spread your targeted message for an extensive period.
—-
All of above reasons make this form of outdoor advertising an ideal solution for smaller brands with more restricted scope, budgets, and resources. Whether a business makes use of this to launch a new product, or turn an online business into a tangible entity, truck media is an affordable, straightforward way to catapult your brand into the public consciousness.
