The 7 Deadly Sins of Vehicle Wrap Design
Vehicle wraps are one of the most cost-effective forms of advertising per impression, which is why they are so popular. But without knowing how to properly harness this medium, many companies fall victim to a variety of mistakes that hold their wraps back from delivering the results they are after.
Like I detailed more in a previous blog post, vehicle wraps aren’t actually meant to be an advertising tool that makes you a sales conversion. I’m sure that sounds strange, but we have to remember that people only have a couple of seconds to see your wraps on the road and they typically aren’t actually looking for your services in that moment.
What vehicle wraps most excel at is building brand awareness, not customer education. Their job is to get your company’s brand stuck in the minds of people, so that when they are ready to contact a company in your industry for more information, they already have someone in mind. These are 7 mistakes you should avoid to help do just that.
Sin #1. A Lack of Consistency
When it comes to branding, there needs to be a near-boring adherence to consistency across all of your materials. If someone sees your truck wraps, they should already be able to start to imagine how maybe your business cards or brochures would look. For a home service company in particular, vehicle wraps are going to be the primary way people start to become aware of your brand. This is more reason that they need to have no more and no less than the most essential visual elements of your branding.
However, some companies have fleets with multiple designs that look like they belong to different companies with different visuals, different fonts, etc. Or sometimes you’ll see extra elements injected into the wrap based on someone’s own personal preferences, maybe like a camo or carbon fiber look, even if those visuals are at odds with what will best serve the brand.
Sin #2. Too Much Information
Since they are such a large canvas, there is so much information you could include on a vehicle wrap. But what information should you include? Thinking back to the purpose of vehicle wraps, any information included should be done so with the goal of building brand awareness, not educating someone on everything you offer.
Less is more here. Avoid detailed lists of services, pricing, multiple phone numbers, addresses, etc. The more information you include, the smaller and potentially less legible things become. And because of how little time someone has to parse what is on the design, too much information can distract from the most important elements, like the logo, company tagline, etc. that people need to remember.
Sin #3. Superfluous Information
Avoiding the wrong type of information is just as important as avoiding the wrong amount of information. Always try to avoid information that is already assumed or easily assumed by your audience. Some of the most common information that falls into this category are phrases like “Residential & Commercial,” “Licensed & Insured,” “Free Estimates,” or “Sales, Service, Installation.”
Excess information, just in general, can also come across as a bit insecure or desperate. Let the competition make those mistakes. Be the concise, confident, no-nonsense brand in your space instead.
Sin #4. Photography
Photos are great for materials like brochures or websites, where they can be used to break up large bodies of text or reinforce what is written in that text, but they aren’t a great fit for vehicle wraps.
Photos can be difficult to decipher, can become dated, and often get used as a crutch to accomplish what good branding would do on its own. If you are a well-branded heating & air company, you don’t need a picture of an A/C unit for people to understand the nature of your business.
The biggest challenge the average small business faces is just obscurity, and photographs don’t provide any unique iconography or visuals for people to latch onto.
Sin #5. Social Media Icons
Much like with photos, social media icons do have a time and place, but on vehicle wraps the cons far outweigh the pros.
They naturally end up being small, difficult-to-see elements. They can date your company, since the branding of these social media companies does frequently get updated. As an extreme example, just think of all the trucks out there still driving around with the Twitter logo rather than the X logo, making their brand look out of touch. Social media icons also just fall into the category of being superfluous information. Just like how people assume you are licensed and insured, they also assume you are on Facebook.
Save social media for materials where your audience has already shown an interest in your company. Strangers on the road, who don’t want or need your services yet, probably don’t want to follow you on Facebook. But someone who is browsing your website for more information just might.
Sin #6. Certifications & Awards
These types of elements suffer from some of the same issues social media icons do. They can become dated and naturally end up being too small for most people to even read. But ultimately I feel like they get used as a crutch to try to accomplish what strong branding would do on its own. You don’t need to convince someone your company is capable when your company already looks like it would be.
Awards are great, but save your messaging about them for maybe a website page or social media posts. You’ll get much more value out of them there.
Sin #7. Weak Branding
This is the deadliest of sins that a vehicle wrap can suffer from. I say this because even if you have successfully avoided the previous 6, this one alone can do the same damage.
The unfortunate truth is that a vehicle wrap is only as effective as the branding that is being integrated into it. If you have a less-than-stellar logo, a forgettable brand name, a weak company tagline, cliché brand colors, etc., it is very difficult for even the most talented design team to put something together that will move the needle for you in the way that you’re hoping.
Your branding acts as a battery for all of your advertising materials. If the battery you are inserting doesn’t have a strong charge, then that means whatever materials it is powering also won’t work properly.
Really take stock of where your branding is at and ask yourself if it’s worth the thousands of dollars needed to wrap a vehicle with it. In the long term, it will always be both cheaper and more effective to get your branding right first.
Thou Shalt Not Settle for Less
If you are looking to redeem your brand for some of its own previous vehicle wrap sins, we are here to help. You can give either of our offices a call, or send us an email to start a conversation about your project.
Murrells Inlet Office: 843.651.6003
Charleston Office: 843.823.9274
Email: sales@wrapsink.com
