10 Best Industries for Mobile Billboard Trailers
Not every industry however is positioned perfectly to benefit from mobile billboard trailers. Say you are a marketing manager for a luxury one-of-a-kind restaurant – you’d be better off utilizing a traditional stationary billboard or a local magazine ad. If you are running a political campaign for a city mayor, transit or LED truck advertising would be a much better fit. Once we start getting out of the city and into an area with a wider reach, things get more interesting… Suburbs, rural areas, freeways – this is where mobile billboards shine. To keep, it are 10 industries that could benefit the most from advertising on mobile billboards:
10. Legal Services:
If you drove along any stretch of any freeway in the last 30 years, chances you know at least 10 injury attorneys. That is by design, as advertising services in the place of potential demand just makes sense. The downside of such advertising though is they only see you in that stretch of the road. Once the driver drives past the ad, unless they see it every day, they won’t remember neither the name of the lawyer nor the phone number to call. This is where an ad placed on a truck comes in. As the ad is traveling with the truck, and victim of an accident sitting on the side of the road, waiting for police to arrive, will notice an ad on the truck passing by. With the right context, the victim of the accident will certainly be more perceptive to reaching the attorney immediately.
Injury attorneys however are not the only legal professionals who can benefit from utilizing the truck ads. Divorce, consumer protection, class action lawsuits can all advertise their services to a broad audience at a fraction of the cost of a classic traditional billboard.
9. Chain Accommodations:
Think of the last time you were driving on an interstate highway – where were you heading? Chances are you were going to look for a hotel that night. Or maybe you were just driving home from work, thinking of staying at the hotel… And maybe of visiting a water park… You get the idea. Advertising trailers wrapped in captivating visuals will effectively engage both travelers and locals driving about their day. Whether you’re operating a national hotel brand or a major regional attraction, like an amusement park, you can target drivers and generate demand with a captivating ad on the side of a truck.
8. National or State Political Campaigns
When advertising on a truck, your candidate is not just promoting themselves – they’re simultaneously helping the truck drivers, 70% of whom in the US are single truck owner-operators. With every dollar spent on the truck ad, the candidate is not simply giving money to a large advertising conglomerate – they’re helping out a small business owner.
While the much lower cost compared to all other forms of advertising, including traditional billboards, is an argument in its own right, the mobile nature of these trailers can be effectively leveraged to reach rural and suburban voters. Raising awareness about a candidate, a cause or a policy can be effectively done with the geographic targeting of the truck-side ad at the state or national level.
7. Insurance, Personal Finance & Banking:
As you might have already picked up, the best candidates for truck-side advertising are businesses without attachment to any physical location, and in the world of Internet, most medium size and large banks and insurance companies have national presence via online. Whether acquiring targeted customers with the use of context on the road or just using mobile billboard trailers due to their lower CPM and higher ROI, truck-side advertising just makes sense for consumer financial services.
Whether advertising life insurance or a health plan, you can have nationwide reach with only a few units. For vehicle insurance advertisers, plastering the ad on an actual vehicle presents a world of creative opportunities. Ah, your ad is also the largest thing in the field of view for bypassing drivers.
6. Automotive Brands:
Car brands can elevate their promotional efforts by the automotive nature of the mobile billboards themselves. By capitalizing on the fact that the ad viewer is in the driving mindset, auto makers can utilize the context and let their creativity run with an ad on a moving truck.
Besides utilizing the context, car advertising, famous for its outrageous ad spend and high bid competition in all other forms of media, can save up on using lower cost outdoor ads on trucks: $1.5-3 vs the typical $10-15 for a TV ad CPM.
5. Cannabis & Tobacco:
While cannabis remains illegal at the federal level, advertising within legalized states is largely legal and can be performed in the region where the company operates. This legal dichotomy presents an opportunity for cannabis businesses to utilize mobile billboards for everything from product launches to educational campaigns.
For Tobacco, the legal situation in the US is even more peculiar: according to Federal Cigarette Labelling and Advertising Act, starting 1971 tobacco advertising has been illegal on TV and radio. Traditional billboards under the same act are heavily restricted. However, section ยง 1333 of the act applies to“the use of outdoor billboards”. Same language is used throughout states. Specific language, which singles out billboards, leaves advertising trucks in a legal no man’s land. While the ethics of this can be left up to your personal interpretation, the interesting fact remains.
4. Technology Companies:
Is the best place to reach the target audience for an online product actually online? Probably yes… Is it the cheapest at scale? Absolutely not. While it might be the easiest to go online for a company that is Internet native, in the world where everyone of your peers puts their ad dollars in the same place, the consumer’s perceptiveness is abysmally low, while CPM bids fly sky-high. Don’t even get us started on the accuracy of online reporting. According to MarTech, US company losses from click fraud in 2022 amounted to $23Bn out of $98Bn total spend – that is almost 1/4 of all of your ad spend.
In contrast, advertising a software product on a truck lets a software business connect with consumers who are not yet chronically online. Consumer also remains much more perceptive to ads seen in a context where they don’t see other ads from the same category. Unlike CPC or SMM, ads on trucks are not making any claims of transactions – you only get reports of estimated impressions and actual geographic attribution of the truck’s movement. All that is in addition to a CPM of $1.5-3, compared to SMM/CPC rates of $6-12.
3. Franchise Dining:
There’s nothing more American than a road trip and food stops along the way, and noting makes a driver and their passengers salivate more than an ad with a juicy burger on it. It is especially effective for national chains that have franchise stores scattered along any major freeway. Not only does it generate demand and saliva in the hungry driver’s mouths, it also gives the chain an opportunity to introduce new menu items: quadruple PB bacon cheeseburger, Belgian fries – pardon our unfeathered creativity.
2. DTC (Direct to Consumer):
Home Chef, Blue Apron, Casper, Tuft&Needle – these are just a few of the household names that advertised on trucks in the recent years, and there’s a reason for that. For consumer brands selling their products online and shipping them direct to the consumer, the specific location of their ad could not play a less important role. Whether it’s 28y/o single Maria driving home from work in the suburbs or Chicago or 48y/o father of 4 kids Taylor, driving to work in Southern California – both of them have back pain from their old mattresses, both drink wine (although for different reasons), and both can receive a box shipped from the company they saw on a truck.
1. CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods):
According to Statista, 73% of Americans drive their car to work. According to Gallup, 82% of them will stop by a supermarket to shop for groceries at least once a week on their way home. Putting your product in consumer’s faces where they are at the moment when they are the most receptive to impulsive buys, all while they’ll have access to your product in 3 minutes at a local Walmart is just good marketing and a wise use of ad spend, especially when you compare this $1-3 CPM truck ad to advertising your chips on a screen for $8 CPM.
On the feedback side, CPG can especially benefit from the truck-side geographic attribution data: you see an uptick in sales at a specific store – look at where the truck with your ad went, this might explain it.