A mobile billboard is a device within the marketing practice of advertising on the side of a truck or trailer that is typically mobile. Mobile billboards are a form of Out-Of-Home (OOH) Advertising. Radio, static billboards, and mall/airport advertising fall into the same category. Using a mobile billboard for advertising is an advertising niche called mobile outdoor advertising.

Most mobile billboard

Billboard

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

s are dedicated, customized trucks with large, but narrow, bodies for posting the advertisements. Some of these dedicated units offer features such as external sound systems

Sound reinforcement system

A sound reinforcement system is the combination of microphones, signal processors, amplifiers, and loudspeakers that makes live or pre-recorded sounds louder and may also distribute those sounds to a larger or more distant audience...

, illumination, and hot/cold boxes for product sampling. This type of mobile billboard is the most popular among vendors, and the most capable in terms of gaining exposure and quick deployment. An innovative development of mobile billboards are dynamic advertising trailers called SkyBoard to hoist large format vinyl banners

Vinyl banners

Vinyl banners as listed in the International Sign Association guide are a low cost form of outdoor advertising. Most banners are now digitally printed on large format inkjet printers which are capable of printing a full color outdoor billboard on a single piece of material.-Materials:The most...

 up to 4000 sq.ft.

Another trend is to use smaller but more distinctive looking mini mobile billboards often based on the Diahatsu Midget from Japan as it is a very rare and unusual looking vehicle in Europe and the USA, these one seater vehicles have a very short wheelbase so they can be parked side on so the large advertising panels on the side are facing the traffic flow, this and the fact that they are such unusual looking vehicles makes them very effective advertising tools.

Some mobile billboards are installed on trucks and trailers that are in service delivering goods. This form of mobile billboards can be less expensive than dedicated trucks, but may also have less impressions because the trucks spend more time at docks loading and unloading their goods.

Box-type trucks with glass panels enclosing the cargo space can be turned into a 3-D display. Many companies use these trucks for parades, product launches, furniture displays, and general rapid awareness creation. Anything can be placed inside of the boxes.

More recently, for micromarketing

Micromarketing

Micromarketing"Micromarketing" was first referred to in the UK marketing press in November 1988 in respect of the application of geodemographics to consumer marketing....

 campaigns, small engine scooters have came into play. The small scooter is used to pull a tall and narrow signage. This form has become a very effective intercity advertising method for Atlanta, Georgia.

Installation

Advertisements are installed by applying large vinyl

Vinyl

A vinyl compound is any organic compound that contains a vinyl group ,which are derivatives of ethene, CH2=CH2, with one hydrogen atom replaced with some other group...

 sheets as decal

Decal

A decal or transfer is a plastic, cloth, paper or ceramic substrate that has printed on it a pattern or image that can be moved to another surface upon contact, usually with the aid of heat or water. The word is short for decalcomania...

s or by fastening one large sheet of vinyl to the sides of the truck or trailer using specialized aluminum frames. The advertisements can also be painted directly onto the side of the truck or trailer.

Printing technology

Printing

Printing

Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....

 technology has improved to the point where outdoor mobile advertising has become an option that may be less expensive than traditional billboard advertising.

Effectiveness

Industry analysts, researchers and trade representatives have researched the effectiveness of mobile billboards. Outdoor Advertising Magazine said that outdoor mobile media billboards have a 97% recall rate, and 96% of survey respondents thought mobile advertising is more effective than traditional outdoor advertising. 3M

3M

3M Company , formerly known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation based in Maplewood, Minnesota, United States....

 and the American Trucking Association noted 91% of the target noticed the text and graphics on truck advertising, and the Traffic Audit Bureau noted that on local routes monthly impressions ranged from one to four millions hits. Product Acceptance and Research said 94% of respondents recalled seeing the Mobile Billboard, with 80% recalling the specific advertisement; the billboards resulted in a sales increase of 107%.

Legality

Some municipalities have strict laws against mobile advertisements. Mobile billboards have been accused of congesting already congested streets, since they seek areas with high populations. In areas such as these, non-motorized but mobile advertisements (i.e. adbikes & Billboard Bicycles) can often be used as a substitute. New emerging companies such as http://www.mobilemedia7.com/ design smaller lighter trucks that can keep up with the stop and go traffic and maneuver through downtown city blocks without causing congestion. These mobile billboard trucks have been welcomed more by municipalities over the larger trucks.

In Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, the use of wrap advertising on busses was prohibited by the road authorities. The reason behind the ban was that in an emergency, the windows might need to serve as an emergency exit

Emergency exit

An emergency exit in a structure is a special exit for emergencies such as a fire: the combined use of regular and special exits allows for faster evacuation, while it also provides an alternative if the route to the regular exit is blocked by fire, etc....

 and that the advertising would make the window harder to break with the emergency hammer

Emergency hammer

An emergency hammer is a safety device used in vehicles to break through window glass in an emergency.It is a simple tool with a plastic handles and steel tip. Its primary use is for breaking through vehicle windows, which are often tempered, in the event of a crash which prevents exit through the...

. Gaia Trafikk

Gaia Trafikk

Gaia Trafikk was the largest public transportation provider in Bergen and Os, Norway until it merged with HSD forming Tide.Gaia was formed by the 1998 merger of Pan Trafikk, the bus company serving northern and southern Bergen, and Bergen Sporvei, the company serving Bergen's inner city...

 argued against the ban, pointing out that their tests showed that the thin wrap had no impact on the breakability of the window, but did remove the advertising which covered the windows. There is now a mobile Billboard truck comp. working in Norway http://mobilebillboards-norway.com/

Other forms

There are many other forms of outdoor mobile advertising, which are considered mobile billboards by some advertising professionals.

One such form is called wrap advertising

Wrap advertising

Wrap advertising is the marketing practice of completely or partially covering a vehicle in an advertisement or livery, thus turning it into a mobile billboard. This can be achieved by simply painting the vehicle surface, but it is becoming more common today to use large vinyl sheets as decals...

, which differs from mobile billboards because wrap advertisements typically envelope an entire vehicle, typically a car or small truck, while mobile billboards are large flat surfaces like traditional billboards.

Other mobile advertising formats include bicycles, airplane banner towing, and mobile billboards on water towed by boats.

More recently, companies such as Tripink http://tripink.com have developed a new form of mobile billboard called digital or video mobile advertising. The principle is the same as that of traditional mobile billboards except that a digital or video mobile advertising "billboard" is an actual screen, which can display commercials.

See also

• Billboard
  Billboard
  Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
  
  
• Bus advertising
  Bus advertising
  In bus advertising, buses and their related infrastructure is a medium commonly used by advertisers to reach the public with their message. Usually, this takes the form of promoting commercial brands, but can also be used for public campaign messages...
  
  
• Driven media
  Driven media
  Driven media is the practice of covering or wrapping any vehicle in vibrant, custom-designed vinyl sheets, turning a vehicle into a mobile billboard. The purpose of this is to provide advertising impressions...
  
  
• Out-of-home advertising
  Out-of-home advertising
  Out-of-home advertising is made up of more than 100 different formats, totaling $6.99 billion in annual revenues in 2008 in the USA. Outdoor advertising is essentially any type of advertising that reaches the consumer while he or she is outside the home...
  
  
• Wrap advertising
  Wrap advertising
  Wrap advertising is the marketing practice of completely or partially covering a vehicle in an advertisement or livery, thus turning it into a mobile billboard. This can be achieved by simply painting the vehicle surface, but it is becoming more common today to use large vinyl sheets as decals...