Fleet operations: Turn your van into a mobile billboard

Advertising your business with vinyl stickers has been around since the 1960s, but it’s only much more recently that wrapping has taken a more serious hold in the van market.

Advances in material technology for the vinyl wrap sheets, as well as for ink and printing sophistication, mean that wrapping is now the easiest way to apply your chosen livery to a van and has all but completely replaced traditional sign-writing.

Richard Davies, trade marketing manager for 3M, one of the world’s largest vinyl wrap material producers, says: “The market has moved on from large trucks and more into the van sector. New films and technology make it easier to wrap the more complex shapes of a van compared to the relatively flat sides of a truck.”

However, Davies points out that van operators are still relatively unaware of vehicle wrapping and the benefits it can offer.

Modern wraps offer van users the choice of a simple company logo all the way to a complete wrap that can wholly change a van’s colour and impact on passers-by.

This is a key reason why wrapping has become much more popular. Van operators can use their vehicles as mobile billboards.

Simon Wallis is sales and marketing director of Dominos Pizza and he has no doubts about the effectiveness of wrapped vehicles as an advertisement: “We spend around £1,000 per vehicle to have it wrapped. With 70 vehicles in our fleet, it’s a considerable expense, but when you compare it to traditional billboard advertising it’s a bargain.

“Our vehicles are on a five-year lease plan and the combined mileage of the fleet is 2.1 million miles per year.

They are on the road 365 days a year. If we were to buy the equivalent billboard space in static sites all year round, I don’t think we’d see any change from £2 million.

“It’s hard to evaluate the impact our wrapped vehicles have on awareness of the company and our brand, but now we have our vehicles wrapped we wouldn’t be without it.”