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The side of a trailer is a formidable canvas for
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advertisers, but it costs much less than buying space on a static billboard.Again,this has been explained by the relative infancy of this process. Marketing people can produce statistics and demographics showing how many people will walk pasta billboard outside a tube station in the heart of London, and therefore its intrinsic value to advertisers, but no-one has yet been able to produce a similar model for trailers.
-If you go to an advertising company they will sell that space on the basis that it will have 'opportunities to see' and they can place a price on that figure," says Owens "Otherwise they can't justify the price.A completely new model is now going to have to be built [for trailers]. We have spent quite a lot of effort on coming up with another model, which is feasible, but it's getting it accepted.
-If the major media companies get more involved the industry would snowball because the drive they would provide to marketing departments would be massive," he adds. "The difficulty they have is being able to justify it, because it's moving around!"
Murton agrees: "We will be offering space to people who normally buy a static billboard, at a vastly reduced rate. Static billboards are very, very expensive."
However, this situation may be about to change. RoadAds is another media company that arranges bespoke adverts for clients to be placed on the sides of trucks. Managing partner Stefan Hohmann says it has created an "audience measurement system" unique to road advertisements which will provide operators and advertisers with as many statistics about their coverage as they could wish for.This information could soon make trailer advertising very big business indeed for everyone concerned.
Electrifying the media scene
-We are bringing to market the capability of audience measurement by a media campaign," says Hohmann."For hauliers the immediate benefit will be to electrify the truck media scene."
For the moment the market is growing steadily, as it has been for the past few years. and operators are already making money. Inevitably, the companies that sell advertising frames or place the images on your trailers are not keen to discuss their costs or the profits hauliers can make. But CM has previously reported anything from £100 to £250 a month being paid for each trailer,depending on the campaign and its duration.
Murton cites an average figure of £150 per trailer. It costs about £2,000 to attach Epic Media's frame and graphic system, so it would take a little time to establish a clear profit. But, says Murton, if a company has large numbers of vehicles in its fleet this figure will invariably change.-Pay varies with customers Routinely, they pay for the frame; it's part of the trailer, it's an asset. Large clients might have frames fitted and then they have a retention on their monthly rent until it's paid for."
Hohmann is more open about the money operators can make:"It depends on the size of the vehicle and the area used by the advert, but it can be 000 per vehicle per month."
He stresses that the length of the campaign is also an important factor; an operator rarely receives the same rate in the second and third month as it did in the first. RoadAils deals with almost all sizes of haulage company, but Hohmann says the minimum amount it would consider would be five vehicles, otherwise coverage becomes extremely limited. He reckons the perfect sized fleet is one with 18-24 rigids because they tend to do relatively local journeys.
But as he explains: "You can package up truck fleets in different configurations to meet clients' requirements."
Curtainsiders are also useful for campaigns; they tend to have flush rear doors, which is handy for advertisemen ts,says Hohmann.
Don-Bur won't go into detail about costs or customers, but Owens says it has recently been approached by a manager for a "major fleet operator with 2,000 trailers in a generally unliveried fleet" who wants to maximise the company's revenues:The implication is that advertising is one of the few areas left for transport companies to squeeze out more profit in a competitive industry.
Overcoming the obstacles
One obstacle faced by advertisers and buyers. as well as many marketing arms of haulage companies. is convincing transport managers and fleet operators that the downtime needed to attach or spray on a graphic will not affect an operator's efficiency.
Agripa's Hendry jokes that one of the first thingsTesco said when it considered this form of advertising was "affect delivery times and you're fired".Agripa didn't and Tesco has continued to display its own or third-party advertisements on the side of its own trailers ever since.
Hendry adds that several years ago it developed an advertising system that enables high-sided vehicles to hold mesh panels.These panels are light enough not to affect air resistance and the mesh is woven so that it doesn't tear.
"We view it as media space that companies own and we want to encourage them through our system," says Hendry. Hendry also lists Unilever. Diageo, Weetabix, Bank of Scotland and B&O among its clients."The problem with big businesses like that is it's a long sell," he remarks. "We can give types of returns; they can monitor it."
Owens says Don-Bur's "dual layer advertising curtain" uses a simple clip system at the top and bottom to fix adverts to trailers: it can be attached in 10 minutes.
"From a transport manager's point of view their primary concern is getting a vehicle out on the road doing its job," says Owens. "Downtime is very important.The simpler and quicker we can get the banner on the vehicle, the better."
He chooses his words care fully, but points out that any system that involves attaching a banner to a curtain-sided trailer must. to a greater or lesser degree, have an impact on the curtain itself. Any operator must bear in mind any consequences to its vehicle should it decide to go down this route.
Epic Media's system takes longer to attach to a trailer. Murton says its aluminium frame and graphic will be on in less than an hour, but adds:"If a fleet manager is going to be mucked about they are not going to want it in their fleet. Ours can he done in the cold, rain, snow." And they are durable. Frames were fitted to 300 MFI trailers a couple of years ago, he says; they are still in working order today. •