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Digital Graphics
August, 2001
“…[TruckSide advertising] speaks to the
targeted niche marketing that the advertising industry has been
moving toward for some time…”
Mobile Ad Group, New York City, put this TruckSide advertising
campaign together for Cadbury Schweppes. Image King of New York
City printed the graphics on flex-face using a grand format
printer. The graphics are held in place by a four-sided frame
system. "TruckSide vehicles provide an alternative out
of home medium that increases exposure to targeted demographics
at the lowest CPM in the industry," says Sam Kaplan, senior
account executive for Mobile Ad Group.
Every metropolitan area in the world is stuffed with trucks.
We curse their every existence as we try to navigate the increasingly
clogged arteries that circulate our fellow commuters and us
into the world's commercial centers. As commuters we see trucks-whether
big rigs or multi-wheeled delivery trucks- as one of the primary
causes of our commuting distress. But as graphics providers
we see opportunity. Many have already successfully tapped the
opportunity to extend a company's on-premise advertising to
the highway. Frito Lay's trucks show us crunchy goods as they
barrel down the road, providing Doritos, or whatever salty snack
food it ay be, with another impression on hungry consumers.
Now, with the help of global positioning satellites (GPS) and
other tracking methods, advertisers are looking for ways to
reach a mobile, urban audience with their message.These days,
XYZ Trucking Co., hauling lobsters, or whatever the catch of
the day might be, from Cape Cod to Boston, could advertise Beenz.
"People see truck side advertising as an additional revenue
source, especially when freight hauling is down because the
economy is down overall", says Doug Scott, news production
editor of Transport Topics. A trucking publication that recently
ran an article about Truck side advertising. "It is growing
in importance, you will see a lot more of the owner/operators,
- the small guys or small fleets - doing it". The parties
that benefit from truck side advertising include the trucking
companies, advertising agencies, media companies that rent the
sides of the trucks, the advertiser and, last but not least,
sign and graphic companies. "One tractor-trailer company
could have 30,000 vehicles - you add that up and the amount
of square footage across the country is phenomenal." Says
Jack Berry, founder of PrintCom, a grand format digital printer
based in Raleigh, N.C. "If they qualify it, quantify it
and get some leaders to adopt it, I will retire soon."
MEASURING TRUCKSIDES
Qualifications and quantification of the effectiveness of truck
side advertising is showing hopeful early results. The Traffic
Audit Bureau (TAB), which audits and authenticates the circulation,
or number of impressions, for out-of-home advertising, like
billboards, has devised a system known as MARG for tracking
truck side advertising effectiveness. The MARG system basically
marries information from a Global Positioning System (GPS) that
tracks a truck's movements every 2 minutes with traffic data
from the federal government's Highway Performance Monitoring
System (HPMS) to audit the circulation of a particular moving
ad. "The system was in development for over 2 years and
we introduced it in December of 1999, so the system is out there
right now and people are in the process of getting the GPS leads
in," says Larry Hennessy Vice President and General Manager
of the TAB. Hennessy, says that initial test results from Chicago
showed about 40,000-50,000 impressions per day for a McDonald's
ad that ran for 12 weeks on 3 trucks, either on the interstate
near the city or closer to the center of town, which averaged
more impressions. "I don't know if it is a direct comparison
(To billboards) because the media are very different, says Hennessy,.
"It is real easy to count how many people see a billboard.
With trucks in motion it's much more complicated, but the numbers
generated in Chicago are relatively equivalent what outdoor
advertising is doing there". Tests in other major metropolitan
markets, like Atlanta and San Francisco, have shown similar
results. Things are definitely looking up for the inner metro
markets, where delivery trucks and such make their rounds within
the city limits.
"One of the phenomena we've seen in the last couple of
years is outdoor media mixes, or optimization, where instead
of buying just posters and bulletins, advertisers are seeing
the opportunity of reaching consumers in micro or niche markets
where they can reach consumers during part of their daily life
cycle," says Steven Freitas, chief marketing officer of
the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), "They're
seeing opportunities to reach them in various places, and one
of the products they're definitely considering and using is
TruckSide advertising". Freitas adds that the OAAA hopes
to start compiling national circulation figures, with numbers
of the top 25 metro markets within a year. This niche marketing
is not restricted to urban areas - the Texas Lottery has had
success on the open road, but so far, excluding the Texas Lottery,
it's the only tracked example of TruckSide advertising. Initial
results from the Texas Lottery campaign have also been positive.
Though the trucks aren"t blazing the coveted inner urban
trails (however, they travel within 50 miles of the central
business district), they're traveling to and stopping at the
places people buy lottery tickets. This speaks to the targeted
niche marketing that the advertising industry has been moving
toward for some time with alternative media forms, like TruckSide
advertising. "About a year ago, Tide wanted to reach people
whey they might be spilling food on their clothes, so they put
Tide ads on paper napkins in diners and restaurants. It didn't
matter what the CPM was, what mattered was that they wanted
to reach diners eating. In many regards, TruckSide is the same
way, " says OAAA's Freitas.
TRUCKSIDE HURDLES
TruckSide advertising is not without its roadblocks, as a number
of factors need to be overcome in order to fully explain the
possibilities. As mentioned earlier, quantification and qualification
of the numbers is one, while the specter of regulation is another.
However, regulation thus far applies mostly to mobile billboards,
trucks that are designed to be moving billboards - particularly
for special events like conventions - and they usually don"t
carry deliveries. There already has been a precedent of sorts
set by the fact that metro busses have been carrying ads on
them for years. It would be difficult to override that precedent
and not allow trucking companies to sell ads on the sides of
their vehicles. For the time being and for the most part, regulation
is a non-issue and the time is ripe for sign and graphics companies
to put together advertising packages for trucking companies.
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