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We often get the same question: “Will a Moving Billboard work for our brand?” The honest answer: not always. A Moving Billboard is 90 m² of brand experience on 40 tonnes of presence. That’s a lot of brand. But a lot of brand only helps if your brand is ready for it.
In this piece you’ll read who it works for, who it doesn’t, and how to check it yourself in five minutes.
what a Moving Billboard does
A Moving Billboard doesn’t sell a click. It builds recognition. Someone sees your brand on the A12. Tomorrow on the A2. Next week at the supermarket around the corner. Not because they were looking, but because you were there. Big. Right in front of your audience. Impossible to miss.
That’s exactly how brands grow. People buy the brand that comes to mind first. Marketing scientist Byron Sharp calls this mental availability. The more often your brand shows up in real life, the more familiar it feels. Familiar feels safe. And safe is where you want to be.
There’s more. A fully wrapped trailer says: this brand is big enough to run its own transport. Big enough to drive across the whole country. That signal is sometimes worth more than the message itself.
the brands it works best for
1. Scale-ups that sell nationwide, but aren’t known nationwide yet.
This is where the biggest gains are. Your product is available everywhere, online or in store. Not everyone knows you exist yet. A trailer makes you visible across the country in one go, and makes you look bigger than you are. For a customer torn between a familiar name and you, that’s often the nudge.
2. Known brands that want to stay known.
Awareness isn’t something you own. Stop being visible and you slowly get forgotten. For a known brand, a trailer does something different: it keeps your brand fresh, extends your campaign beyond the screen, and reaches people you no longer reach online. Recognition works extra fast here, because your logo, colours and style are already in people’s memory.
3. Challengers taking on a big market leader.
On the motorway, everyone is the same size. Your 13.6-metre trailer next to the market leader’s: the difference in marketing budget doesn’t show. That makes Moving Billboards a level playing field for anyone who wants to challenge.
4. Employers looking for people.
Engineering, logistics, healthcare, construction: the people you’re looking for aren’t on LinkedIn all day. They’re in their cars. An employer brand that drives past every day becomes a name people know when they’re ready for something new.
5. Offline brands.
Your brand doesn’t live on a screen. It lives in shops, on the street, in everyday life. That’s where your advertising belongs too. A Moving Billboard shows up where your customer really is. Not in a feed. On the road.
the brands it doesn’t work for (yet)
Start-ups without a proven product. Your product needs to work first. Awareness for something that doesn’t work yet only speeds up the wrong things.
Local businesses with a single location. A trailer goes where the cargo needs to go. If your customers are only in Zwolle, your brand will mostly drive past people who’ll never visit you. The exception: a regional network of hauliers who mainly drive in your area.
Brands that only want leads. A Moving Billboard doesn’t fill in a form. If you want to see every euro back in your CRM tomorrow, you’ll be disappointed. If you want to build a brand, you won’t.
Brands without a recognisable face. Passing traffic gives you a few seconds. A complicated message, a generic logo or five different brand styles disappear as they pass by. Recognition starts with a brand that has something to recognise.
check it yourself: five questions
Can people across the Netherlands buy your brand, online or in store?
Do you know what the Moving Billboard needs to do for your brand: make you known, or keep you known?
Is your goal a stronger, trusted brand, rather than a quick lead?
Can someone recognise your brand within three seconds?
Can you stay visible for at least twelve months?
Four or five yeses? Then your brand is ready for the road. Want personal advice? Call Des: +31 6 53 20 77 30
you rent the effect. you don’t own it.
Preliminary results from the University of Groningen, which is researching what Moving Billboards do for sales, point the same way. For one national online retailer, sales were significantly higher in the areas where the Moving Billboards drove. The effect showed up in the month after visibility. After that, there was no significant direct effect.
The lesson for every brand: visibility works, but only while you’re visible. Effect isn’t something you own. You rent it. That’s why it pays off most for brands that can stay on the road long enough to become known, and to stay known.
curious about your brand?
We’ll take an honest look with you. Even if the answer is “not yet”.
Book a brand check with Desley
Trayler
makes your brand bigger.
