Mobile Truck Advertising: Your Ad Might Cause Bad Reputation
Mobile Truck Advertising
The consequences of COVID-19 for the advertising industry
As the economic impact of COVID-19 continues to unfold, brands and agencies need to keep a up to date with the changing consumer behaviors and ensure they are prepared for any outcomes and find new opportunities. Marketers will have to change their strategies to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 is now a major focus since advertisers are researching better alternatives to keep their clients. Traditional out-of-home advertising methods such as billboards, bus stops, fliers, magazines, and transit posters will have a hard time finding their feet in the long run.
A survey conducted by the platform Numerator indicated many industries are shifting their messaging to in-home delivery. As example, restaurants are pivoting to food delivery message. The increased “work from home” periods will force the shift of advertising concepts. Numerator reported that Burger King and Little Caesars are even advertising new delivery options available in their stores.
Adzze has been adapting the advertising vehicles to a more sensitive message. The team has working on extending its capabilities to offer advertising vehicles that can reach the consumers at their safest place: at home. One of these concepts uses pizza boxes as advertising space. Think of this as small moving billboard that gets delivered at the consumer’s home. Studies demonstrated that this type of ads can evoke an 80% recall rate (8 out of 10 households individuals remember to see an ad on the pizza box) with an average ROI of 150%. This means, for every 1 dollar the advertiser invested in a pizza box advertising campaign, they received at least additional 2.5 dollars of sales. For more details see the article Estimating the ROI of Pizza Box Marketing.
Out of home (OOH), advertising is an essential medium through which companies build brand awareness. One of the most popular OOH advertising platforms is mobile truck advertising. In it rucks ferry billboards to target locations during an ad campaign.
Mobile truck advertising promises high exposure but low conversion
Sure, trucks traverse thousands of miles in a day, exposing billboards to thousands of people. Mainly, periods of traffic on highways exposes people inside cars to the message for longer duration.Thus, are more effective. Studies show that 91% of people inside vehicles look at truck side billboards actively at the time of exposure. However, under 35% of the viewers follow up on the advertisement on online platforms, the study further reveals. Of the 35% who follow up on the ad, just a handful make a direct action, making the medium quite inefficient.
Backers of mobile truck advertising argue that the medium reaches consumers “at the point of purchase.” On the upside, this is an advantage because it enables advertisers to reach deep into the market. However, the advertising medium suffers from similar issues that plague the entire OOH advertising sector. Notably, advertisers are unable to pinpoint the exact section of the target audience that they would like to reach. It explains the low rates of brand engagement.
Truck Ads and reputation
Brands are looking for alternative to static traditional OOH advertising as vehicle advertising or digital mobile OOH. The use of ads on advertising trucks has been emerging as unconventional tactics however it has risks related to the impact on reputation. When the vehicle carries the advertisement of the brand on the road, the advertising truck serves as brand ambassador. Any driving misbehavior could impact directly the brand image. In addition, advertising trucks have several pitfalls as low return on the ad investment, difficult to track the outcomes and low brand recall. Advertising trucks cannot target precisely the exact audience as any traffic driver could be targeted. There are some parts of the country and others globally, with restrictions on billboards. As such, advertisers cannot access the areas during an ad campaign. In such a situation, truck side advertising is an ideal alternative. Notably, advertisers can attach different types and sizes of billboards on the side of trucks.
Relying on trucks to ferry your messages during ad campaigns carries other risks that you might not be prepared to tackle. For example, your brand will take the heat if the driver of the truck misbehaves on the road. Customers tend to associate the brand with the behavior of the truck drivers. It is because the customers believe the trick drivers represent your brand wherever they drive to.
Additionally, if the billboard on the truck is faded, customers may view that as a sign of negligence. Notably, customers are sensitive people, and a small thing is big enough to send them scattering away from your business. Billboards that are not attended to communicate a different message, one that tells the customers that your business might ignore them soon after. Your business should not suffer such an embarrassment.
From the preceding, it is prudent to keep the billboards on the truck side in good condition at all times. It means that you will be spending extra money to ensure that you protect the reputation of the business.
The Ad industry will focus on the Stay-at-Home vehicles
Recently the Interactive Advertising Bureau surveyed nearly 400 media buyers and brands. The results were surprising: 74% think the coronavirus pandemic will have a larger impact on their advertising spend than the 2008 financial crisis. According to the President of Interactive Advertising Bureau, David Cohen, “Typically marketers will press pause for a moment, take a breath, assess the situation, replay and reevaluate.”
The use of mobile OOH methods will most likely experience more decline in the coming months, given the fact when the economy re-opens, people will still be cautious and stay more at home. Mobile advertising using trucks, buses and others will be fast replaced by in-home advertising. The impact of COVID-19 has kept normally mobile citizens inside their homes. Hence, the best ways to reach your audience and maintain brand visibility will be to take your products and services to them indoors, as it will be clearly unprofitable to place adverts on advertising vehicles that no one is seeing.
The Challenge of Billboard Costs
Effective media should enable a clear way to track number of impressions. Traditional OOH advertising as billboards display lack of targeting and tracking possibilities. The fact that many highway drivers cannot focus on the ad message generate a low engagement with the target audience. The costs of billboards depend on format, circulation, demographics, and impressions. Traditional billboards have high costs, low ROI cost varies $14,000-20,000/month in larger markets. Some cities imposed a ban of billboards due to visual pollution. Unconventional agencies provide alternatives to the targeting issues with approaches as mobile billboards, digital OOH, ads on trucks and other ads in places people don’t expect to see as flags, backpacks, inflatable objects, gas pump and balloons.
Billboard costs depend on format, circulation, demographics, and impressions. Traditional billboards cost $14,000-20,000/month in larger markets. With the cost of billboard/month, the advertiser can place its message on 40,000 coffee sleeves to 40 different coffee shops during the same period of time.
Guerrilla Marketing as alternative
Clearly, you need to brace yourself for higher costs and other issues like bad reputation when using trucks to advertise. Fortuitously, in-the-hand marketing offers the best alternative in terms of costs. Usually, the capital required to finance preparation of this medium is low depending on the chosen tactic.
Viral marketing can be achieved with element of surprise is a smart way to attract consumers attention as marketers target on creating a stimulus that triggers surprise by placing ads in unusual locations and with unconventional methods that had never used before. In-Hand Advertising is a concept that used consumables as door hangers, pizza box toppers, prescription bags, drink coasters, Custom coffee cups , hotel room key cards as advertising space placing the message in the hand of the target audience.
The surprise effect and unconventional nature of the advertising tactics enhances the assimilation of the message that has a direct impact on increasing the brand recall rate
Here some practical examples:
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A law firm that promotes a DIU defense service can be placed on beer coasters in NYC bars
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A healthcare provider can promote his new center by placing a message on branded pharmacy bags in reputable pharmacy venues close to hospitals
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A new entertainment center offering a coupon discount on coffee cups targeting millennials
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A high-end product advertised on hotel room key cards targeting travelers
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The new fitness center offering a promo code on pizza boxes after ingesting a decent amount of calories!
Say, for example, you decide to use custom printed coasters. To produce a single customized coaster, you will need less than a dollar. Therefore, the budget for a single mobile truck advertising campaign may finance production of almost 60,000 coasters. As such, you will be able to reach 60,000 individuals in one campaign. Further, you only need to deliver the coasters to the right location. Therefore, you will not have issues to do with reputation and more.
Pizza Box Marketing and Stay-at-Home Advertising
During this crisis marketers will have to adapt and to stay on top of the latest trends. Its critical to improve type of advertising message shifting it to more sensitive perspective. The business of marketing is changing in the age of COVID-19. Whether its effects are brief or prolonged, marketers need to be nimble in these challenging times, and pivot when needed while optimizing performance throughout the crisis.
