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| Vroom to a new look | | Billboards are pass?. Vehicles draped in dazzling graphics and vibrant colours, or vehicle wrap, is a cost-effective and environment friendly way to spread your message |
| Rajarshi Bhattacharjee / Feb 06, 2012, 00:10 IST |
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 If expensive cars and luxury buses have been the head-turners on Indian roads so far, there is a more cost effective way to be the next showstopper. Thanks to the recognition of fleet graphics as a strategic advertising tool and the latest technology available to slap your message on cars, buses or sundry other vehicles, vehicle wrap is gaining ground as a cost-effective and environment friendly way to spread your message. From Nokia’s Chat.r.Box with its signature palm-marks wrapped on a Toyota Qualis, to the Chevrolet Beats dressed in Levis jeans or a Volvo bus dolled up in green as the Sprite Xpress — you can’t miss them on the roads.
One of the many advantages of vehicle wrap is its high impact — the eye-impressions a brand can garner offers among the highest return-on-investment among all out-of-home (OOH) possibilities. Second, it is scalable, and third, it goes well with all kinds of businesses — big corporates as well as small local businesses.
“Vehicle wrapping is a strategic kind of advertising, unlike what we see on a regular outdoor,” says Raghu Khanna, founder & CEO, CASHurDRIVE, a company that operates in the execution and tracking of on-vehicle advertising. “In regular outdoor advertisements or billboards, there is no accountability about how many people are actually seeing it. But vehicle wrap is a value-added service in a different format and advertisers are increasingly trying this,” he adds.
Parul Sharma, project lead, styling, General Motors India, acknowledges the high impact this concept delivered during one of the company’s promotional activities. On his part, Albert Pinto, manager with a Canara Bank branch in Bangalore, says, “It was around four years back when we first went for this and it was a hit. Since then Canara Bank has been using this medium whenever it feels appropriate. We have taken it up in Bangalore, Mumbai, Indore and some other cities.”
When CASHurDRIVE started off around three years back, the segment was completely unorganised; now as more players enter, the scene is changing. Overall, the out-of-home advertising market at Rs 3,500 crore. The vehicle graphic market is a small Rs 100-odd-crore in India today. But with technology and design innovations, the cost of vehicle wrap is also coming down. This companies see will boost growth.
In the words of DJ Bangara, MD, AutoStriping India, a brand using vehicle wrap ends up achieving 20 times more visibility than a stationary billboard placed at a prime location in the city. “Customers are accepting it as the most economic and impactful mobile advertising medium these days. The target audience can be reached in no time. It won’t be an exaggeration any more to say that this will become a must-do for the advertising industry in India,” says Bangara.
Players from telecom, lifestyle, real estate, automotives and the health industry are among the more popular users of vehicle wraps now. Popular vehicles on which advertising graphics are done include Volvo buses, radio cabs and taxis.
A shot in the arm to this segment came from advances in fleet graphics technology. Moving on from solvent-based technologies, the most recent latex technology offers the advantage of printing on any kind of surface/media delivering high quality results, also at a relatively low cost. The latest technology also addresses the weatherability issue with a certain degree of competence.
Puneet Chadha, director, Graphic Solutions Business, Imaging & Printing Group, Hewlett-Packard, says, “Fleet graphic is different from the billboard market as the adaptation needs to be done according to the vehicle. The design is first prepared and adapted to the size of the vehicle, and the surface on which it will be used. It doesn’t leave any impression and easy to peel off.”
Chadha hints that youngsters are also taking to wraps as a way to dress up their cars. “Regular car users have also started going for it; there are those like to change the look and feel of their personal vehicle every three months, although that's a small number still,” he adds.
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