"Keep on Truckin' "
Digital Graphics

Every metropolitan area in the world is stuffed with trucks. We curse their every existence as we try to navigate the increasingly clogged arteries that circulate our fellow commuters and us into the world"s commercial centers. As commuters we see trucks-whether big rigs or multi-wheeled delivery trucks- as one of the primary causes of our commuting distress. But as graphics providers we see opportunity. Many have already successfully tapped the opportunity to extend a company"s on-premise advertising to the highway. Frito Lay"s trucks show us crunchy goods as they barrel down the road, providing Doritos, or whatever salty snack food it ay be, with another impression on hungry consumers.

Now, with the help of global positioning satellites (GPS) and other tracking methods, advertisers are looking for ways to reach a mobile, urban audience with their message.These days, XYZ Trucking Co., hauling lobsters, or whatever the catch of the day might be, from Cape Cod to Boston, could advertise them.

"People see truck side advertising as an additional revenue source, especially when freight hauling is down because the economy is down overall", says Doug Scott, news production editor of Transport Topics, a trucking publication that recently ran an article about Truck side advertising. "It is growing in importance, you will see a lot more of the owner/operators, - the small guys or small fleets - doing it". The parties that benefit from truck side advertising include the trucking companies, advertising agencies, media companies that rent the sides of the trucks, the advertiser and, last but not least, sign and graphic companies. "One tractor-trailer company could have 30,000 vehicles - you add that up and the amount of square footage across the country is phenomenal." Says Jack Berry, founder of PrintCom, a grand format digital printer based in Raleigh, N.C. "If they qualify it, quantify it and get some leaders to adopt it, I will retire soon."

MEASURING TRUCKSIDES
Qualifications and quantification of the effectiveness of truck side advertising is showing hopeful early results. The Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB), which audits and authenticates the circulation, or number of impressions, for out-of-home advertising, like billboards, has devised a system known as MARG for tracking truck side advertising effectiveness. The Marg System basically marries information from a Global Positioning System (GPS) that tracks a truck"s movements every 2 minutes with traffic data from the federal government"s Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) to audit the circulation of a particular moving ad. "The system was in development for over 2 years and we introduced it in December of 1999, so the system is out there right now and people are in the process of getting the GPS leads in," says Larry Hennessy Vice President and General Manager of the TAB. Hennessy, says that initial test results from Chicago showed about 40,000-50,000 impressions per day for a McDonald"s ad that ran for 12 weeks on 3 trucks, either on the interstate near the city or closer to the center of town, which averaged more impressions. "I don"t know if it is a direct comparison (To billboards) because the media are very different, says Hennessy,. "It is real easy to count how many people see a billboard. With trucks in motion it"s much more complicated, but the numbers generated in Chicago are relatively equivalent what outdoor advertising is doing there". Tests in other major metropolitan markets, like Atlanta and San Francisco, have shown similar results. Things are definitely looking up for the inner metro markets, where delivery trucks and such make their rounds within the city limits.

"One of the phenomena we"ve seen in the last couple of years is outdoor media mixes, or optimization, where instead of buying just posters and bulletins, advertisers are seeing the opportunity of reaching consumers in micro or niche markets where they can reach consumers during part of their daily life cycle," says Steven Freitas, chief marketing officer of the Outdoor Advertising Assoc. of America (OAAA), "They"re seeing opportunities to reach them in various places, and one of the products they"re definitely considering and using is TruckSide advertising". Freitas adds that the OAA hopes to start compiling national circulation figures, with numbers of the top 25 metro markets within a year. This niche marketing is not restricted to urban areas - the Texas Lottery has had success on the open road, but so far, excluding the Texas Lottery, it"s the only tracked example of TruckSide advertising. Initial results from the Texas Lottery campaign have also been positive. Though the trucks aren"t blazing the coveted inner urban trails (however, they travel within 50 miles of the central business district), they"re traveling to and stopping at the places people buy lottery tickets. This speaks to the targeted niche marketing that the advertising industry has been moving toward for some time with alternative media forms, like TruckSide advertising. "About a year ago, Tide wanted to reach people whey they might be spilling food on their clothes, so they put Tide ads on paper napkins in diners and restaurants. It didn"t matter what the CPM was, what mattered was that they wanted to reach diners eating. In many regards, TruckSide is the same way, " says OAAA"s Freitas.

TRUCKSIDE HURDLES
TruckSide advertising is not without its roadblocks, as a number of factors need to be overcome in order to fully explain the possibilities. As mentioned earlier, quantification and qualification of the numbers is one, while the specter of regulation is another.

However, regulation thus far applies mostly to mobile billboards, trucks that are designed to be moving billboards - particularly for special events like conventions - and they usually don"t carry deliveries. There already has been a precedent of sorts set by the fact that metro busses have been carrying ads on them for years. It would be difficult to override that precedent and not allow trucking companies to sell ads on the sides of their vehicles. For the time being and for the most part, regulation is a non-issue and the time is ripe for sign and graphics companies to put together advertising packages for trucking companies.