Outdoor Keeps on Truckin’
Outdoor Advertising Magazine, November/December 2004Truck side advertising is not new to the outdoor arena. This medium has been used for years to advertise in major metropolitan markets, city and suburban areas and along interstates and market-to-market routes. These large street level ads generate excellent exposure and high-impact impressions. Truck side advertising has always been a good complement to an existing media mix, and now the medium has become a great way to reach hard-to-hit areas and large geographic territories.
Outdoor on a Roll
LouAna© Foods, the South’s oldest cooking oil company, has taken truck side a step further with it’s 48-foot “rolling kitchen” as part of the company’s launch of the LouAna Foods “Fry Fest” mobile sampling promotion. Wrapped in a LouAna advertisement, the rolling kitchen has made stops at retailers throughout the southern United States offering chef demonstrations, free samples, recipe cards and postcards.
Through Thanksgiving LouAna Foods will offer residents throughout Alabama, the Carolinas, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee great fried food tastes of the South. The LouAna Fry Fest is rolling into towns in the South offering traditional recipes for such delectable treats as Alabama fried chicken, Cajun fried turkey and North Carolina fried Twinkies™. “This is the ideal ‘vehicle’ to bring the LouAna message directly to consumers,” says Phillip Saifer, President of LouAna Foods. “It also provides strong local retail partnership opportunities while bolstering the brand’s visual presence in its key market’s.”
A Branding Tool
Bolstering brands is a main objective for Michael Donovan and his company, Donovan/Green, which he co-founded with Nancye Green. Creating experiences around the brands they develop has led Donovan/Green to partner with some high-profile clients. For example, Donovan/Green created the packaging for Barney’s New York, helped launch American Express’s Platinum Card, and created the retail destination environments for American Girl Place in Chicago and Sony’s Metreon in San Francisco.
Several years ago, Donovan was asked to design the Hall of Fame for the United States Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs. “While I was developing the project, I wondered how we could take the Olympic story and spirit to America. I knew people wouldn’t come to Colorado Springs, so I had to take the message to the people,” Donovan said. “I started thinking about the old days of Barnum & Bailey when trailers would travel through the towns advertising the circus,” he said.
Donovan decided to use tractor/trailers (he hates the term “truck side”) to advertise the Hall of Fame. “We deployed branded tractor/trailers and realized that, when properly executed, brand impression becomes brand presence. The package became the product. The creative impact, powered by large scale and motion, was very successful,” he said.
Donovan’s enthusiasm for the truck side medium led to the creation of Asphalt Media, a division of Donovan/Green. Asphalt Media contracts with the trucking company Swift Transportation to wrap as many as 10,000 18-wheelers with moving billboards. Clients include BIC, XM Satellite Radio, Buena Vista Television, General Motors and NBC. The cost for a campaign using the 4,000-cubic-foot message is comparable to a typical billboard campaign, according to Donovan.
Making the Most of the Medium
Effective use of this medium is not easy, Donovan added. After compiling a list of problems associated with making truck side a viable alternative medium for his clients, Donovan began to look for ways to turn those problems into opportunities. “I’ve launched a lot of brands and realize that you need nationwide inventory,” he said. “Second, I knew the trailers had to be contained in local markets, or DMA’s, which puts contact with consumers close to the point of purchase on high-traffic commuter arteries, urban streets and in shopping center parking lots. Third, I realized that measurement was critical,” said Donovan.
Asphalt Media addressed the supply issue through its partnership with Swift. Trailers are dedicated to specific national retailers and are part of a daily delivery network. Routes operate in a hub-and –spoke pattern from a central distribution center. “Categorizing these routes by DMA allows us to tailor our mobile platform to local, regional or national advertising campaigns,” said Donovan.
With the supply problem solved, Donovan turned his attention to measurement. With global positioning satellites mounted on each trailer, Asphalt Media tracks the movement of branded trailers and attains third party verification through signals generated roughly at four-minute intervals. The Traffic Audit Bureau then provides proof of consumer impressions through its Mobile Advertising Report Generator software. “Each trailer delivers 500,000 to 600,000 opportunities for consumer impressions each month,” Donovan said. “Asphalt will provide validation of impressions, as well as demographic information for each campaign with a post performance report.”
The use of this measurement/tracking technology provides advertisers with a demographic breakdown that covers a five-mile corridor paralleling each traveled route. General demographic categories include population, education, employment, vehicles per household and consumer spending by category. However, the reports can be tailored to an advertiser’s specific need with hundreds of highly targeted categories available. “While putting ads on the sides of trailers may seem well-traveled ground, Asphalt Media has brought mobile media to a new level by providing validated numbers for ad impressions,” said BIC Senior Stationery Product Manager Janel Olsen-Lewis. “This medium delivers our message close to points of purchase at shopping centers, on heavy traveled commuter arteries and on urban streets via a fleet of trucks that travel each day the exact same routes to and from key national retailers. Through this program, we also receive qualitative and quantitative research to prove that our ads are not only seen but that they drive retail sales.”
Donovan is also pressing the technology on the creative side. For example, Asphalt is exploring technology that will allow advertisers to automatically alter the ad text as the trucks move up the highway. He is excited about the possibilities of this alternative medium and outdoor advertising in general. “I’m passionate about out-of-home, because it gives you scale, motion and brevity. When you combine that with the ability to move, you offer advertisers and creative directors another tool,” Donovan said. “Not only are these mammoth messages seen by millions of drivers and pedestrians, 85 percent of them assume that ‘what’s on the outside is on the inside.’ Even though the trucks may be carrying anything and everything from apples to desk chairs, consumers seeing the BIC ad, for example, think, ‘Man that’s a lot of pens being shipped to stores.’”
Donovan added, “Perception is nine-tenths of reality. What a powerful way to create brand presence for brands not even in an area. The story-telling opportunities are tremendous.”
