1. Good Design Is Key
This ad for Jack Daniels on a London cab be easily seen from skyscraper windows and it looks classy and interesting from the street. A great combination of good design and creative positioning.
Another example from the UK, this wrap for a printing company is loud enough to get a lot of attention but understated and elegant enough to convert viewers into customers. This design is stark contrast to the huge-text, in-your-face, explosion-and-fire designs of most commercial wraps on the road. No one has ever been annoyed into becoming a customer. Good design in vehicle wraps is surprisingly hard to find. A clever, well-designed vehicle wrap is an easy and immediate way to set your ad campaign miles ahead of everything else out there.
2. Be Entertaining
All advertising must be either entertaining or informative. Anything else will be immediately forgotten at best, and at worse will hurt your brand. With mobile and outdoor media like vehicle wraps, there's usually not enough time to inform, so you have to entertain. If you can get drivers laughing and pointing, they'll talk about it for days and become evangelists for your brand as well as new customers. An easy way to be entertaining is to put advertising unexpected places. In this economy, almost everyone is ready to cut a deal. If you have an idea to put an ad in an unusual spot, don't be afraid to so some digging and find someone who can say yes. You may even end up saving a lot of money. Here are a few examples:
3. Think Outside of Cars and Buses
Everyone's seen mobile ads on the side of a bus, but trains are a relatively untapped medium for ad placement. They also offer some interesting creative opportunities that buses so not offer. Imagine a giant snake ad for the local zoo or the entire army of Verizon's support engineers as a part of their "we never stop working for you" campaign.
Trains give you the freedom to make your advertising more emotive and conceptual. Good train ad design take advantage of odd shape and expansive space. You've also got a captive audience, so use the interior as well. Do something that makes passengers get out their phones and Google your company on their way to work.
