Wraps On The Go

Now Tivo & D.V.R.s lets you skip TV commercials, Satellite Radio is commercial free, Internet killed phone book ads and newspaper print ads, internet now has spam blockers and popup blockers stopped internet ads. So where are companies going next to keep your attention? Car ads! As you sit in traffic you have to look at them.

They are often mistaken for custom paint of murals or called custom car graphics but the proper term for them are called Vehicle Wraps, they take vehicles and shrink wrap an ad all the way around it (wrapping every nook and cranny). And it is the hottest growing form of advertising - it was even featured on an episode on NBC of Donald Trump's the Apprentice. It started in the 90's with wrapping buses. These are the city buses that have ads covering the entire bus including the windows. It is expensive so it didn't take off immediately and only large advertising firms and advertisers with major budgets took advantage of this form of marketing. In the mid-nineties bigger business started to wrap semis and tractor trailers. With long distant drivers and millions of miles driven the impressions caught the eyes of large companies like fast food chains. So next thing you know you see a giant Big Mac driving down the road. By the late nineties the mid-sized businesses like produce companies started wrapping their box trucks and refrigerator trucks with pictures of juicy vegetables.

The construction industry started jumping in with all there service pickup trucks and cube-truck wraps. Soon there was 50-100 local trucks and van wraps with pictures of beautiful houses with the builders name or icy mountain tops with a local air-conditioning - plumbing company driving around town all day they took off like wildfire. In 2000 the word for those "in the advertising know" was wraps, wraps, wraps.

Every business with any size fleet wrapped then from 1 van wrap to 25 fleet vans ponied up the cash. From florist delivery vans covered with gorgeous flower arrangements to pest control companies putting giant gross bugs wrapped on their sprinter vans both gained the desired effect of getting their potential customers attention while going about their daily business. In the early 2000's the wrap industry started to explode. Then small business and home based business figured out the return on this form of advertising and wrapped SUVs and started wrapping mini-vans and even car wraps. Now minivans wrapped with multilevel marketing elixirs and SUVs and Hummers wrapped with the local realtors face are now more and more visible.

The show cars are wrapped now placing designs and graphics all over their customs. Euros and drifters as seen on "Pimp My Ride - MTV show" and the "Fast and Furious Trilogy" are wrapped. Wraps are the new airbrush paint job of the 2000s. Even NASCAR wraps their racecars so sponsors get the most visibility and can be replaced instantly if in a fender-bender! Their even putting trailer wraps on their car transport trailers!

What's next? Plane Wraps? Boats Wraps? Motorcycle Wraps? Personal Car Wraps? Personal Truck Wraps? Building Wraps? Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. They are already being done as we speak. Planes have been wrapped with world cup soccer ads, southwest airlines did a supper successful campaign by placing two different sign of zoo animals wrapped on either side of the plane and it gave the appearance the fleet was twice as big. Boat wraps in Florida are gaining popularity on the offshore boat racing circuit by wrapping those long curvy expensive high-speed rocket boats. (This is a very hard on the material as the water beats against the boat as it speeds at over 100mph!) The bass fishing tournament industry now requires all boats wrapped as the few that were wrapped seemed to get all the camera time on ESPN 2 and all other televising stations. Now that is proof of the power of wraps! (This was just a real world observation, of course there have been many independent studies on the effectiveness of vehicle advertising verses other media and even cost analyst comparisons and roi numbers if you want to see then click here.)

Motorcycles wraps and ATVs wraps are gaining popularity in the past few years. But the most talked about craze is personal car wraps and not what you might think. Yes some people are wrapping their cars with flags and such but the most hype in this industry is the get paid to drive some company's ad around on your car for money or "free car" type websites. There are advertisers wanting to hit certain markets but the supply is a lot less then the demand. Anther popular use of wraps that's gaining nationwide is the camo wraps or camouflage truck wraps. Hunters are lining up to get this done to their personal trucks.

What's the strangest thing we seen wrapped? Building wraps? No that's been done hundreds of times in every major city. Trains-Monrail systems? Nope that's gotten to be normal already. You ready? Musical instrument wraps! Yes ! Guitar wraps and drum wraps are the hot new thing! These wraps are so versatile and effective who knows if it will ever end...... By the way these wraps are very difficult to apply even with the best material 3M Scotchprint material controltac with comply (flexible non-damaging print material for wraps). So this spawned a whole new artisan or craftsman the Certified Professional Wrap Installer…..Are wraps growing into a main stream advertising medium? You better believe it!