Out of home advertising is constantly growing and adapting to the surrounding media landscape. From the use of transit, to the adoption of digital screens, to wallscapes, the out of home space is always looking for new ways to adapt and create fresh spaces for advertisements to be seen. With that being said, what happens when the advertiser moves from the sidelines and into the streets themselves? And what happens when the consumers become the medium with which these advertisers do this? This is happening more and more as the usage of the average person’s vehicle is used by advertisers.
New vendors are popping up that specialize in the wrapping of cars, similar to what is done in the transit space with buses. Each vendor has their own database of drivers all across the country in various markets. Advertisers can then select a region that they wish to be present in, and these vendors will wrap any number of vehicles that drive around within the desired area. Options range from a full wrap of the car along with smaller side panel advertising.
These car advertisements have many good uses and benefits as they offer a hyper-local approach to advertisers that is not confined to simply one space. In addition, this is one of the few OOH tactics that will reach both the motorist and the pedestrian, particularly in urban areas. The use of cars also achieves penetration into certain areas that do not have existing OOH advertising available.
There is some hesitancy with this new and growing medium though. The ability to be hyper-local with the car advertisements offers the downside of not being able to do this on a larger scale. Additionally, the advertiser is dependent on the drivers of the various vehicles to not only drive within the desired geography but do so on a consistent basis. This lack of control could be problematic. Measurability is the last facet that is a big unknown for this media type. In today’s day and age, advertisers want to know how many people their media is reaching and what type of impact it is having. As of now, each vendor has their own methods for calculating impression totals based off of traffic patterns and miles driven. Since there is no consistency among vendors and no way to relate directly to the TAB ratings used by OOH vendors, advertisers are not always willing to jump into this opportunity.
Like any new media type, car advertising has some growing pains that advertisers are looking to be dealt with before fully committing to it as a long term strategy. However, it does offer the ability to target key local geographies that may be vacant in the OOH space. As a result, on a case by case basis it is a something to consider for future campaigns.