By Michael Davis
Did you know that an average U.S. consumer spends more than 70% of their day outside their home? The brands this consumer sees while out dining, driving, or working greatly influence the ultimate buying decisions.
To properly understand this impact, let’s view a few OOH advertising stats.
- Globally, companies spend an average of 21 billion USD on out-of-home advertising.
- Billboards remained the favorite outdoor ad space for brands with an ad spend of $5.46 billion in 2019.
- Retail brands are the #2 highest spenders on OOH advertising.
- Advertising your brand on a vehicle boosts your brand name recognition 15 times more than any other type of advertising.
- 97% of consumers easily recall a brand ad on a truck and 30% would base their purchase decision on a mobile advert.
While the 2020 pandemic has had a severe negative impact on the OOH industry, 2021 and the gradual return to (post-Covid) normalcy have renewed brands’ interest in the out-of-home advertisement, especially mobile ads, such as truck-side advertising.
This story is a discussion on how ads-on-wheels carry your brand message more perfectly than any other format.
- Immune to Ad-Blockers Yet Un-Intrusive
Ad blockers are rampant. They are a must if you want to have an unrestrictive online experience. And while consumers love them, for a marketer, they are a pain in the neck. How do you circumvent an ad blocker without becoming an intrusive and sneaky ad popup that nobody likes?
You go mobile. By displaying your brand’s ad on the side of a truck or a commercial vehicle, you ensure that your audience sees you – even if they do not engage with you. The more they see you, though, without popping up on their screens, the more likely that engagement becomes.
The next time they go out to buy a product that you sell, nearly a third of consumers will recall your brand and likely purchase from you.
And there you have it, an ad format that an ad-blocker can’t touch but that also doesn’t annoy the bejesus out of your consumers.
- Has Flexibility & Freedom
Ad space is precious real estate in the world of marketing. You have to say your bit and show your logo and other graphics in a limited space. While digital ad spaces and those on newspapers and magazines are restrictive, truck-side ads are roomier.
They allow you to show your well-crafted advertising logo design and other features of the ad without sacrificing important details. People call them billboards on wheels. And that’s true. You get the whole large-size effect of a billboard but without the restriction of being stationary – your ad is moving freely, reaching more people, and meeting customers on the point of purchase.
- Fast & Doesn’t Rely on Loading Speeds
After you’ve spent several weeks and countless revisions on creating the perfect ad, isn’t it a shame that a slow WiFi or a lousy page load speed can prevent people from viewing it?
Google cites slow page load speeds as one of the major reasons why users stop engaging with a website. If your PPC ad runs on such a website, it directly affects your brand recognition, recall, and even the sales funnel.
An ad on wheels is free from that restriction. The viewing of the ad doesn’t depend on the consumer’s access to a digital connection or a newspaper. It’s faster and more stable than that. The ad is present on the street and constantly moving. You may come across it on the next street or see it again when you sign out for the day and head home.
- Visible from a Distance
We love billboards because they make sure that our ads are going to be hard-to-miss. Visible from a distance, a billboard ad is great at captivating our attention. All the other ad formats – print ads, online ads, ads in the mail, and such – lose big against billboards when it comes to easy visibility.
But the visibility of billboards is temporary; you turn a corner and the ad is not there anymore. Depending on people’s routes, schedules, and driving preferences, it may be after several hours that a consumer can see the ad again. By advertising on commercial vehicles, you ensure that your ad not only sits above the traffic but that you keep coming across it every time you leave the building.
The ad is visible for longer, from multiple places and with varying vantage points. Compared to the ads in newspapers etc., a truck-side ad is more present and more consistent.
So, the takeaway?
The Covid-19 pandemic has shrunk the marketing budgets for many brands. To make the most of your smaller budgets, we suggest investing in advertising on trucks, cars, and other commercial vehicles to meet your customers where they are eating, shopping, and working.
A full-scale ad on a large city billboard may cost a lot, but in less than that price, you can get three trucks advertising your brand all over the city for longer and maybe with more impact.
