Your client on
ice cream trucks
Wrap the truck in a giant ad and hand out samples
By Diego Vasquez
Mar 15, 2010
Spring is nearly here, and summer's not too far behind, which means the arrival of a warm-weather staple: ice cream trucks.
Ice cream trucks can deliver more than just sweet treats to your neighborhood. They're also a good place for advertisers to put their message.
Advertisers can wrap a truck or subsidize free or reduced-price treats for an entire neighborhood, which is a hard offer to resist. Who doesn't love ice cream?
Advertisers earn goodwill by bankrolling the treats. They also get a unique way to reach people in an unexpected place, appearing in areas where there's little or no advertising, such as suburban neighborhoods.
The trucks are very versatile. They can be either stationary or mobile, and they can include a variety of extras, including street teams, product samples and branded elements such as napkins.
Ice cream truck advertising is fairly new and not yet widespread. To find out how to get your client on ice cream trucks, read on.
This is one in a Media Life series on buying out-of-home venues. They appear weekly.
Fast Facts
What
Advertising on ice cream trucks across the country, either via wraps or ice cream giveaways.
Who
There are about a half dozen companies in North America that handle ads on ice cream trucks. Some cover single markets and others cover multiple markets.
How it works
Ice cream truck advertising has been around for only a few years, and less than half the nation's trucks actually carry advertising.
 |
Campaigns can be as simple as wrapping a truck with the advertiser's logo, covering every bit of the truck's surface but the ice cream menu.
But the most effective campaigns combine wraps with offers of free or reduced-price ice cream.
Verizon used that approach with Mr. Softee trucks in New York City last year that sold ice cream for 99 cents to promote the company's 99-cents-a-day prepaid wireless service.
Trucks can also employ street teams to pass out samples or hype a new product or service. Target recently promoted the grand opening of a store in Southern California by handing out free ice cream along with store coupons.
Sometimes advertisers pass out branded napkins, cups or cone wraps. They can even tinker with the type of the ice cream being served. A candy or cookie company could hand out free sundaes with its product as the topping.
 |
Ice cream trucks can be stationary, sitting in the same high-traffic location all day, or move about, gaining exposure in a variety of neighborhoods.
A financial services company might target business workers by wrapping stationary trucks on street corners in a downtown business district. Or an advertiser targeting Hispanics might customize a truck’s route so it hits the city’s Hispanic neighborhoods.
Moving beyond the the Good Humor jingles of the past, advertisers can even take over an ice cream truck’s sound system.
A Vancouver rap duo recently wrapped a truck with their photos and pumped their songs over the truck’s speakers, giving customers free CDs when they bought ice cream.
Last year Virgin Radio placed eight trucks outside of a U2 concert in Vancouver, giving away free ice cream while the radio station played through the trucks’ speakers.
 |
Trucks are typically 10 feet high and 16 feet long. Most trucks sell either soft-serve ice cream or prewrapped ice cream bars, though a few offer both.
Markets
Ice cream truck advertising is currently available in about 50 North American markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Dallas.
But advertisers can also rent and wrap trucks from these cities and send them to other markets where ice cream truck advertising is not yet available.
Numbers
Ice cream is a booming business. The U.S. ice cream industry generates more than $21 billion in annual sales, according to the International Dairy Foods Association. The group says 9 percent of all the milk produced in the U.S. is used to make ice cream.
In New York trucks typically conduct 700 to 1,000 transactions per day. On the day of the Verizon campaign last year, sales jumped by 700 percent over an average day.
How it is measured
Advertisers count the number of items sold or given away to measure impressions. Attendance figures can also be used for ice cream trucks parked outside of special events.
What product categories do well
Frequent ad categories include telecommunications, personal care products, entertainment, consumer packaged goods and retail.
Demographics
Among those who have consumed ice cream in the past 30 days, 51 percent are female and 49 percent male, according to Scarborough Research, which surveyed people age 18 and older.
Twenty percent of respondents are age 18-29, 29 percent 30-44, 34 percent 45-64 and 17 percent 65-plus.
Fourteen percent report an annual household income below $25,000, with 21 percent between $25,000 and $39,999, 11 percent between $40,000 and $49,999, 18 percent between $50,000 and $74,999, 15 percent between $75,000 and $99,999, 12 percent between $100,000 and $149,000, and 9 percent at $150,000 or higher.
Making the buy
With artwork already approved, lead time is typically two weeks to wrap a truck.
Pricing varies depending on the market. In New York the cost is about $6,000 per month per truck, while in Vancouver the price is $3,000 per month per truck.
If an advertiser wants to subsidize the ice cream, it costs an additional $200 for each hour the truck is on the streets.
Who’s already on ice cream trucks
Recent ice cream truck advertisers include Verizon, Tylenol, MTV, Nike, Altoids, AMD Technologies, Starz On Demand, Monster.com, T-Mobile, H&R Block, JetBlue, AT&T and Target.
What they’re saying
“What makes it great for advertisers is they can reach specific areas and demographics, such as Hispanic or African-American neighborhoods. The other part of the medium is you also have promotional rights inside the trucks, so you can do branded items such as napkins, cups and cones.”–
Josh Cohen, president at Pearl Media.
Web site info
AdvertisingVehicles.org
http://advertisingvehicles.org
Mr. Cool
http://www.icecreamtruckadvertising.com
Trimex Mobile Marketing
http://www.trimexoutdoor.com
Pearl Media
http://www.pearlmediaus.com
International Association of Ice Cream Distributors and Vendors
http://iaicdv.org
National Ice Cream Retailers Association
http://www.nicra.org
International Dairy Foods Association
http://www.idfa.org
Sweet Treats
http://www.sweettreatstruck.com
|
|
|
