Strong beer marketing begins with great design. Competition is fierce in this market and creative branding and packaging can make the difference in consumers choosing your brand over any other selection on the shelf. But, if your branding efforts include strong packaging alone, you are missing out on a prime opportunity to expand the reach, frequency and impact of your advertising campaign. By using a marketing strategy that incorporates your vehicles as well, you can put them to work in engaging and persuading consumers to buy your innovative brews.

Whether you operate a fleet of 100 trucks or rely on a single van to deliver your products and services, graphics can transform your fleet into a cost-effective media asset, powerful enough to help drive brand awareness, sales and business growth. Consider this: a single intra-city truck with graphics can generate up to 16 million visual impressions in a year (per American Trucking Association). In fact, study after study ranks mobile media as the most cost-effective and influential advertising media available.

KEY STUDY FINDINGS:

• Fleet graphics generate a large number of impressions — in this study, an average of 6 million Prime Daily Effective Circulation (DEC) per truck, annualized.
• Mobile media advertising offers the lowest cost-per-impression of any major advertising medium.
• Routes and messages can be optimized to target specific demographic groups.
• Fleet graphics add a valuable dimension to the advertising marketing mix.

Vehicle graphics have the ability to reach an incredibly broad area for a much lower cost than other traditional forms of media, such as television or publications. When your vehicles are done with their deliveries for the day, the brand awareness does not stop once the vehicle is parked and the driver goes home. It builds as long as your vehicles are generating visual impressions.

REFLECT YOUR VIBE & ATTITUDE

This brand identity, that you have worked hard to craft, should be carried consistently across all your advertising campaigns and this includes your company vehicles. As strong as your product labeling is, your branding consultant should be able to carry the tone of that advertising across the medium of your vehicle. By soliciting the assistance of a professional branding agency, your brews will maintain their competitive edge across your advertising campaigns.

QUALITY COMMUNICATES QUALITY

Remember that your consumers are buying your beer because of the quality of your product. Your brand story or advertising might have initially enticed them to visit, but it is your beer that keeps them returning. This quality should extend to your branding as well. Quality marketing communicates quality in your brand. Seek a vendor that understands this concept for branding that does not cut any corners.

BRANDING EXCELLENCE

When you are looking to brew up business and brand awareness with your fleets, contact Signature Graphics for premium exposure. Our expertise goes beyond the fleet, as well. Signature Graphics combines impressive creative talent with the latest print technology and equipment to deliver brilliant, large-format vinyl graphics for practically any application.

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Crafting Brand Buzz

Strong branding is essential in the customer-centric world of today. But devising a brand aesthetic that appeals and resonates with consumers is only half the battle. Businesses also need to inject their brands with signage, graphics and all manner of promotion that builds their profile and attracts interested eyes.

Businesses have to embody their brands in every facet, and being quick to react isn’t just a matter of policy or process, but also practical action. Fleet graphics are a key asset to responsive brands that want to reach customers whenever and wherever they can. Intuit cited Outside Advertising Association of America statistics that show 95 percent of Americans are reached by media targeted at drivers and passengers, like a vehicle wrap promoting your business at the stoplight.

Yet there are many considerations to devising a fleet graphics strategy. Aside from the evident factors like choosing your visuals, the colors and the material, the quality of the vendor relationship must be factored into decision-making. Fleet graphic projects take regular maintenance and monitoring, and businesses with a brand to protect, conceptually and physically, need a partner able to provide the necessary support to ensure their graphics generate value.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT VENDOR

The vendor variable is an important piece to an overall fleet graphics project. Finding the balance between a product that is high quality and service that is delivered by accessible, experienced and trusted professionals will prove all the difference in the success of a fleet graphics initiative.

Particular advantages business should seek from their vendors include:

• Certification and warranties: Credible practices and reputations are hallmarks of a good vendor. Having bona fides like G7 Master Printer certification and a warranty backed by industry authorities like 3M ensure you have a reliable and accomplished partner.
• Quality materials and service: Fleet graphics, being outside most all the time, need to be durable and able to perform in the roughest conditions. Finding a vendor that supplies the most high-quality materials with the most skilled and knowledgeable service ensures project success.
• Transparency and empowerment: Not only should vendors be upfront and available, but they should also grant clients the tools to communication and connect them with needed resources in a certain situation.

BRANDING MANAGEMENT

Making sure your concepted brand is accurately and expertly conveyed through fleet graphics is a top priority to address. Again, businesses can’t do it alone in this arena, and having a vendor to provide high-quality services is central to effective brand management. Specifically, companies will want to consider assurances on:

• Manufacture and approval: Having insight into production and your vendors’ capabilities helps you design the best possible graphic. Including a proofing and approvals process to ensure a clean representation of your idea is also crucial.
• Vehicle services: Since you might not have the tools and skills to apply the graphic, having a vendor who does is important. Working with a vendor that offers full service for prep, installation and removal guarantees a high quality of work.
• Supportive tools: Connecting you with resources to support is a responsibility of the vendor. Syncing up with a partner who can provide progress reports, inventory and fulfillment services and other means of support will be important to the fleet’s success.

BRANDING EXCELLENCE

Given the strategic and practical importance of working with a capable vendor, firms will want to consider Signature Graphics when exploring their own interest in fleet graphics. With a number of certifications, a trusted staff and high-quality services, Signature graphics is able to work with clients along every step of the process to craft a unique approach that delivers them value.

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Building a Winning Brand Reputation

What strategy are savvy marketers using to:

• generate brand awareness;
• display their brand narrative;
• target a broader, mobile audience;
• and communicate quality in their branding?

They are using the strategy of organic marketing to grow their businesses. Organic marketing utilizes the assets, that you already have in play, for marketing purposes. One such asset is your company’s vehicle or vehicles.

PREMIUM EXPOSURE

Vehicle branding is a particularly effective strategy for beverage and food companies. Such companies have a broad audience and, by employing a moving billboard, they have the ability to reach this audience where they spend the majority of their time, out of home. The average American spends an enormous amount of their time behind the wheel. When compared to other forms of advertising media, fleet graphics offer a lower cost alternative and generate a substantial number of visual impressions. They offer a unique opportunity to engage your audience and share your compelling narrative.

QUALITY MATERIALS COMMUNICATE QUALITY IN YOUR BRANDING

Your brand is the most valuable asset of your company. When you are looking for creative exposure of your brand, keep in mind that high quality marketing communicates premium quality in your brand. To communicate quality to your consumers, your branding needs quality messaging, materials, and application. It is vital to your image to find a branding partner that makes it easy to find balance between a product that is high quality and service that is delivered by accessible, experienced and trusted professionals.

THE EFFECT

What is the effectiveness of vehicle graphics, you might ask? A study by the American Trucking Association and Robinson, Yesawich, and Pepperdine found:

• 75% of people surveyed developed a first impression about a company and its products from truck advertising
• 91% of people notice ads mounted on the side of trucks and can recall the ad days later
• Nearly a third of people would base a buying decision on the impression they got from the vehicle
• Vehicles are the best way to provide targeted, mobile coverage over an entire marketing area
• Ads are viewed by business customers as well as retail consumers

BRANDING EXCELLENCE

Signature Graphics combines impressive creative talent with the latest print technology and equipment to deliver brilliant, large-format vinyl graphics for practically any application. We assist our partners in leveraging the power of their assets for marketing purposes. As a branding company, we tailor solutions that give our partners maximum exposure for minimal investment by using our broad marketing knowledge to develop effective fleet graphic programs.

Our Partners Experience these Powerful Benefits:

• The most powerful warranties backed by industry authority, 3M
• Coast-to-coast, border-to-border Signature Certified Installation and servicing
• Utilization of the highest quality materials, printing, and technological processes
• Creative services & design crafted by branding and marketing experts
• Detailed installation guidelines
• Approval processes, including proofing, so you know exactly what to expect

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How vital a role does project management play in a fleet brand activation campaign? If you have a budget and a deadline that must be met, it plays a leading role. Projects are naturally chaotic and proper management organizes that chaos and ensures goals are met from conception to completion. If you are in the developmental stages of a branding campaign, you should keep in mind the following to help you allocate resources and establish target dates.

SCOPE

Think of your fleet branding efforts as an entire project. Projects are not exploratory exercises. They require clear process mapping to eliminate the risk of facing delays and overruns. Your project’s scope should define its goals, team, timing, and deliverables. Simply put, project scope establishes what you are trying to accomplish and the efforts you will make to deliver the outcome.

TIMELINE

Schedules are essential to keeping projects on track. Your fleet branding timeline needs to capture the tasks that need to be completed, such as the number of vehicles and their locations, and the dates those tasks need to be completed by.

BUDGET

Budgeting is instrumental in determining how much can be spent on each aspect of the project and in preventing runaway costs. To ensure your estimates are accurate, consider consulting the experts. Collaboration means you will benefit from those who have experience and knowledge outside your own.

If you see a fleet branding initiative on the horizon, reach out to Signature Graphics, Inc. Our thirty plus years of industry experience will help you establish accurate forecasting in regards to scope, timelines, and budgets.

Collaborate with the Industry Experts

A COLLABORATIVE JOURNEY

Knowing what brand activation does for companies, and how to get to that heightened exposure, is only part of the process. When it comes to capitalizing on branding opportunities, companies need a partner they can rely on. It’s this collaborator that must excel at honing in on target audiences and generating sustained media exposure, on top of overseeing day-to-day management of branding activation objectives.

Through a partnership with the experts at Signature Graphics, you can ensure your company receives the very best in vinyl wraps, decals and custom designs. Signature Graphics has built its long-standing reputation on the pillars of creativity and clean, simple design work, ensuring your brand generates continued exposure among your client base. From bright, bold colors to truly engaging design schemes, Signature Graphics understands the power these visuals can have for your brand, whether it’s for relaunching a brand or starting a new enterprise.

Brands must continually aim to ascend to the top of their respective industries. Brand activation is the path to that goal.

It starts by building perception among your clients and creating a sense of value that your brand holds. From there, it’s using that exposure to continue to reach out and develop relationships with clients. But none of that happens without one essential connection: a company like Signature Graphics to make the most out of the visual components of brand activation. With Signature Graphics, you can reach the mountaintop in no time.

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ACTIVATING TRUE POTENTIAL

To understand how brand activation, materializes in the real world, it helps to have a case study to examine. Based out of Surprise, Arizona, Catch a Wave Vacations helps plan everything from family vacations to destination weddings. The company described its use of car wraps as a kind of “moving billboard,” with people noticing how colorful and creative the wrap was from day one. And that appeal had real-world effects: As much as 65 percent of the company’s subsequent inbound calls came from people responding to the wrap. It just goes to show that this simple but effective approach can significantly increase a brand’s exposure, and that ultimately boosts its ability to close deals with customers.

Brand activation means that people recognize and trust companies more readily. But how does that awareness impact an organization directly? Once a brand enters the public, how does a company benefit in a way that matters to their bottom line or place in the larger marketplace?

At the most basic level, proper brand activation means you can better engage with the market, and that’s important not only for higher sales but an understanding of the latest trends and traffic within a given industry. Brands can also experience a greater level of media exposure, and it’s these newspapers, magazines or web shows that can assist an organization with effective outreach and generating added business. Finally, all of this attention is crucial for building a long-lasting relationship with clients and consumers. Happy customers can help further promote a company through a ripple effect, meaning more referrals with less overall effort.

Examining another case study better illustrates this point: In the mid-2000s, 91.3 Jack FM – a radio station out of Los Angeles known for playing classic rock – launched a car wrap campaign to help promote its afternoon “Jack Show.” The wrap, which featured the station’s logo as well as several brightly colored guitars, was a perfect choice: As audience numbers tend to peak during periods of high traffic, it made sense to employ a car-centric form of exposure to reach a target audience. And the move worked, as Jack FM was able to transform a simple decision into a noticeable bump in listeners. This decal was a prime example of awareness of your audience, which is a centerpiece of any meaningful activation.

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A MATTER OF PERCEPTION

The best brands are more than just a fancy logo or a colorful aesthetic. They are a medium with which to influence and interact with the world at large. But you don’t start with a powerful brand on day one.
That’s where brand activation comes in: Be it a campaign or interactive experience, brand activation is essential to creating a base of loyal consumers and generating attention around a suite of products or services your company provides.

The strongest brands move beyond simple visuals and sway people on an emotional level. But what exactly goes into a successful brand activation? There is no definitive map for successful brand activation, because each company might be different in terms of its end goals. Instead, a properly planned launch touches on a few essential elements.

The first is to figure out specific actions that you want consumers to take. With clear goals in mind, you’ll have a fuller picture of how to make that vision a reality. These actions could be purchasing a new product or signing up for an email list.

From there, you need a specific idea for the activation process. That is, what steps can you take to make a truly lasting impression on people, something that goes beyond actions like giveaways or hosting a party.

Finally, any meaningful activation needs to result in promotional opportunities – building interest and participation by offering up elements like content, advertising and merchandising.

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When you make an investment in vehicle graphics, you want the peace of mind that your investment will be durable enough to last for the length of your promotion. Graphics and signage warranties provide you with that peace of mind. Warranties provide you with a branding solution that provides high impact and message consistency from one application to the next by delivering products and systems that create graphics of unsurpassed consistency, reliability, and durability.

Color That Lasts

Your color will stay your color for the life of the warranty. This includes everything from large fleet markings to small cut letters on signs or store fronts. Color plays a critical role in brand identity and provides your audience with recognition cues when used consistently.

Weathering Exposure

Warranties mean you can have complete confidence that the products and processes used to create your branding have undergone rigorous weathering testing to ensure they will perform throughout the warranted period. Sun. Rain. Snow. Whatever the weather, your graphics will stand up to it.

Vendor Relationships

Vendors that use warranted material have certified equipment and processes that deliver brilliant, large-format vinyl graphics for practically any application. They’ve made a commitment to – and investment in – relevant production technology that translates into finished graphics products of the highest quality.

3M MCS Warranty

Signature Graphics provides the most comprehensive finished graphics warranty in the industry. When you use finished graphics made with all 3M Graphics products and components, you’re protected for virtually any application. Signature Graphics would be happy to quote your next brand activation campaign on our 3M materials.

Quote My Project

Racine Transit System, in Wisconsin, recently partnered with Signature Graphics to install branding on their brand new Ryde. The re-brand features new messaging, in the form of RYDE, and progressive designs that reflect the direction the City of Racine is moving in. Like Racine, transit systems can experience numerous benefits by incorporating full coverage wraps onto their equipment as well.

Promote Your Brand

Vinyl wraps are a cost effective solution to making your brand stand out. They offer a range of short to long term applications so you can apply high quality, complex advertising and remove them quickly and easily, without damaging the surface underneath.

Short-Term Advertising

Short-term graphic applications, on transit vehicles, offer opportunities to promote events and sell advertising space. This type of mobile advertising is easy to remove, after the advertiser’s contract length expires, and easy to install.

Protect Against Damage

Graphic wraps offer a great solution to vandalism, such as graffiti. Some vinyl finishes are resistant to paint so that graffiti does not adhere to the graphic, making it easy to wipe off. This helps to alleviate any repetitive maintenance costs.

Create Indoor Ambience

Vinyl film can be applied to virtually any surface, which includes the interior of your transit vehicles. They have the power to enhance your passenger experience with graphics that will refresh your vehicle’s interior.

If you are considering a brand activation initiative for your transit system, reach out to Signature Graphics. We specialize in assisting transit agencies in promoting their brand, services and community everywhere their vehicles travel.

Looking to Add Value to Your Transit System?

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