For every hour your curtainside trucks or curtainside trailers spend on the road, estimates are that at least 4,500 people may be “impressed” — advertising jargon for every time someone notices and recalls the graphic displayed on your curtain. That’s over a million every month, an “impressive” example of outdoor advertising and promotion, indeed. But how do you make sure your curtainside graphics are making the most of that opportunity to grab attention and get your message across? Successful truck trailer advertising strategies tend to include certain common elements you can put to work when thinking about a curtainside trailer or truck. Here are a few guidelines for creating and exploiting curtainside graphics.
- A curtainside graphic must create a vivid brand impression in a fleeting instant—not provide an in-depth rendition of your entire product and service line-up. In most cases, drivers on the road have at most 2.5 seconds to glimpse, comprehend and, hopefully, recall the information presented by a curtainside graphic. Don’t waste that opportunity by making it overly comprehensive or attempting to “educate” a passing driver. Limit the graphic to a vivid brand logo, a tagline of very few words and an easily remembered web URL. Even a phone number can be “too much information” these days: most people aren’t going to pull over to the side of the road and jot it down.
Notice this Carta Blanca curtainside trailer graphic. What a great example of curtainside trailer branding! It grabs your attention and instantly relates what the product is. Simple and Bold makes this trailer design a success.
FedEx is a leader in branding. This curtainside trailer graphic instantly reinforces FedEx's branding. Communication simplicity works great for known brands.
- Are you a gifted graphic artist with experience specific to curtainside trailer advertising? If not, hire someone who is. Designing a curtainside graphic isn’t a DIY project. Certain ad agencies and graphics professionals specialize in mobile advertising. They make a living designing graphics specifically for that purpose and are well-versed in the unique challenges of effectively communicating impressions at 65 miles per hour. These include creating an eye-catching, memorable logo that stands out from the competition and ensuring that all imagery enhances (versus distracts from) your main message. Technical issues such as distance legibility and localizing graphics to specific geographic markets are also part of that specialized mobile expertise.
This Summit Electric Supply curtainside truck graphic is a perfect example of strong design. The design is simple, bold, eye catching and uses photos of people to help viewers "connect". It also give the URL which can drive traffic to your website.
This DW Distribution's curtainside trailer graphic, again focuses on simplicity for it's trailer design. Although this design looks simple, you'd be surprised at how difficult it is to stay simple in design. A non-professional designer often over complicates a design with too many images and a ton of small content or bullet-points that is hard to read when the trailer is on the road.
- Don’t forget the rear door. In slow traffic, drivers spend more time behind a truck than passing it on either side or glimpsing it from a distance. Decals, graphics or wraps that replicate the main side-curtain graphic and information in smaller format can be cost-effectively created and applied to the double doors of a typical box van to turn that available 100 square feet into an effective space for communicating your brand.
PrimeSource does a great job promoting their Grip Rite product on the back of the trailer with this curtainside trailer graphic. Again, simple and bold with the ability to read the logo well from both close viewing and at a distance.
Notice how Naples Lumber keeps their curtainside truck graphic simple with a focus on branding. The logo on the back of the body is big enough to stand out on the road and when sitting in traffic.
EcoWave's curtainside trailer rear door graphic does a few things well. Obviously it brands the company with the bold logo. It communicates what EcoWave does with a tagline and descriptive copy and it also drives people to the website for more info. This rear trailer graphic stands out, is clean and professional, and drives relevant viewers to action with the URL.
Want to see more examples of the type of graphics Roland Curtains Inc offers for fleet advertising and/or truck and trailer promotion? Check out these options:
- Curtainside Silkscreen Graphics
- Curtainside Digital Graphics
- Trailer Rear Door & Cab Decals
- Curtainside RolaBanner Graphic Systems
