Have you seen a bad vehicle wrap?

Have you seen a bad vehicle wrap?

Vehicle Wrap Advertising 101: When do you NOT want to wrap your car?

Part 1

What might sound like a ridiculous question coming from a vehicle wrap company, is a legitimate question that needs to be asked, as there are many times that a company should not fully wrap their car or fleet vehicles.

For starters, avoid wrapping your car if you or your neighbor designed your logo. Anyone with word paint or who is “kind of artistic” can design a quality logo, right? Wrong!

It’s like saying anyone with a Harbor Freight tool kit can fix your car or work on your air conditioner. Proper design takes extraordinary skill, so consider putting some of your advertising budget towards a professional logo or vehicle design. Your logo and brand are your company’s identity and reflect upon your professionalism and investment in your company. A good logo can get people to remember your company with a glance, and when it comes to mobile advertising a memorable logo can make your wrap selection that much stronger.

You should definitely not wrap your truck if you want to put every single service your company provides on the side of it. Your company vehicle has seconds to get your advertising message noticed and a vehicle wrap that is too busy just does not work. Inevitably many business owners just love to have everything on their vehicles even if it’s not to their advantage.

On the other hand a well designed, and clean truck wrap will be readable as it drives by a potential customer, and with minimal yet effective copy it will be easily read, and remembered. We discussed taglines in our post “Tying marketing in with your new wrap” and a vehicle wrap is a great place to utilize your tagline and value statements.

If your morning coffee budget is more important than that of your mobile advertising budget, avoid the truck wrap, stay in Starbucks waiting for the phone to ring. Your $3.00 coffee that you have daily costs $1,095 a year and for 3 years cost $3285. For some customers, they are quoted $3K for a vehicle advertising project and they just about choke on their coffee. We’re talking $3.00 a day…is your business worth that much? And most vehicle wraps won’t cost you that much and will last longer than 3 years.

If the cost still doesn’t seem within your current marketing budget there are some other options that can help bring the cost down but put your message on your vehicle.

Complete Wrap:

Your whole vehicle is wrapped and your message and company brand is displayed everywhere. This is best if you have a little more to spend, and really want to get the most for your marketing dollar.

Partial Wrap:

We can wrap the hood, sides, or whatever section seems to fit your message best, and display well. These wraps only cover a section of your vehicle which will cut down on material costs, and installation.

Vinyl:

This is an older method of vehicle advertising. Think a cable or electric company truck with a logo and phone number on the door. This is a cheaper alternative to a vehicle wrap but it is very limited. We don’t recommend vinyl for a complete solution to vehicle advertising but for the limited budget, or simple solutions it can be an option.

Partial Wrap and Vinyl Combination:

With the combination of a partial vehicle wrap, and vinyl application we can work to make a well rounded vehicle advertising message. This method cuts the cost of the full vehicle wrap, while still giving your truck or car a traditional message with a modern flare.

Next time you’re driving, pay attention to the business vehicles that get your attention and why. What is it about the vehicles that make you say “Ooooh!” and the ones you just don’t want to waste your time looking at. Notice the semi-trailers wrapped with Coke, Jack in the box, McDonalds and how clean, simple, yet effective their designs are.

Vehicle wraps work, whether it’s a truck wrap, car wrap, or even a trailer. We will make them work for your company. We know you have a budget for your marketing expenses and we will steer you in the right direction so you get the biggest bang for your marketing dollar.

About the author:
Dan Deary is president of 1st Impressions Truck Lettering, a 3M Certified Vehicle Wrap shop located in Phoenix Arizona.