Advertising with Bus Graphics

Advertising is an industry that is always looking out for the next big thing. It is a mortal sin to be late in catching on with the next hottest trend, whereas but actually starting a trend to be followed by different creative professionals from all over the world is striking gold in a coal mine. This is probably the euphoric feeling that the person who first thought of putting vehicle wraps on various modes of transportation experienced—including the person who conceptualized the Crystal Pepsi bus graphics in the early 1990’s.



Bus graphics have been around for a couple of years now, but unlike most TV commercials, their effectiveness has been pretty underrated. Mainly because there are not a lot of advertisers who think their product cannot pull off bus graphics, or maybe their creative agencies did not actively push endorse the idea to them. Bus graphics and other forms of vehicle wraps can be considered as a form of out-of-home or outdoor advertising. This form of advertising is designed to reach the target market even when they are out of the home (that is, out of the reach of television sets, newspapers, and magazines). Outdoor advertising is a mass-market medium, not much unlike broadcast mediums like TV and radio. Often, this form of advertising is used for introductory, branding, and supplementary campaigns, all of which are targeted to a wide variety of consumers instead of a special niche. Aside from vehicle wraps, outdoor advertising also involves billboards, street furniture, and transit advertising (which can be seen on public transportation such as taxis, buses, subways, and trains).



Reaching thousands of people belonging in to certain market segmentations is not cheap—but vehicle wraps promised to change that. Broadcast medium like TV and radio are very expensive, and this is one of the main reasons why we do not see a lot of small businesses advertising their products and service during primetime hours. Bus wraps aim to reach millions of impressions (or the number of people that have seen the advertisement) with at a fraction of the cost of a TV commercial. They are not as expensive to produce, and can even surpass the amount of impressions that a TV commercial can provide a brand.



Consumers respond better to the novelty of bus graphics—they are enticed to buy the products advertised through vehicle wraps more than they are with the ones advertised in the traditional media.