By Dan Antonelli / President & Creative Director,
NJ Advertising Agency Graphic D-Signs, Inc.
Looking for the best ROI on your HVAC truck wraps?
Here's a few tips to get the best HVAC truck wrap for your business.
When viewing most HVAC truck wraps on the road today, you’d think the concept
of designing a simple, easy-to-read message was difficult to understand for most companies designing HVAC truck wraps. This is unfortunate, as HVAC truck wraps are not cheap, and when done correctly, can generate substantial leads for service businesses, especially heating and air contractors. When done incorrectly, they represent a missed opportunity, wasted cash and a poor ROI.
Rule #1: Start with A Great Brand
So many HVAC truck wraps fail from a marketing
perspective because the company has a poor brand identity and logo.
The brand should always be the primary message for a vehicle wrap,
unless you have national brand recognition. By starting with a poor brand means you’ve failed before you’ve
begun: by wasting money on a wrap and missing a huge marketing
opportunity. Carefully examine your current brand and ask yourself if it represents who you are as a company, and more importantly, the perception it garners. If it's dated, illegible from a distance, uses clip art, or is just simply not memorable or unique, it may be time for change. Here's where you want to stand out, not fit in like every other HVAC contractor with snowflakes and flames in their logos.
Rule #2: Don’t Use Photos
If you're using photos on your HVAC truck wrap, you're probably doing yourself, and your brand a disservice. There are few effective wraps that use photos, and I’d argue that any
wrap that uses a photo could have been more effectively done without
one provided the company had a good brand (see
Rule #1). A photo is not a brand identity; it doesn’t connect me with the
business name. Maybe it connects me with what the company
does, but if doesn't connect me with
who the company is.
Rule #3: Limit Your Advertising Copy
I know your HVAC truck looks like a big canvas. That doesn't mean we need to fill it with a grocery list of every HVAC service under the sun. There’s only 3 or 4 things a good wrap needs: strong
brand implementation, and perhaps tagline messaging, a web address, and
maybe a phone number. Bullet lists, which look more like shopping lists,
have no place on a vehicle. This isn’t the yellow pages. Would you
rather list 10 things and have none remembered, or convey one to two
memorable takeaways? If this truck were a billboard, how much copy would
be on it? Billboards have the exact same challenges as vehicle
advertising. If you prioritize your copy, it will be more effective. In
general, the hierarchy should always be:
BRAND, TAGLINE, WEB and/or PHONE NUMBER.
Rule #4: Design to Stand Out, Not Fit In
This
isn’t the part where many might say diamond plate, carbon fiber, tribal
flames will make your HVAC truck wrap stand out. Or the picture of the owner and his family flanking a condensor unity. Quite the contrary. By
eliminating all those fills, noisy backgrounds, photos, bevels, and
glows, you’ll be well on your way to designing a wrap which actually stands
out. The wrap market is littered with visual noise. When we see
something with impact -- something that we can actually read and
remember -- it can't help but stand out among the visual clutter. Start with the basics and if you keep needing to add things to the design to make it 'better', it's probably not good to begin with.
Rule #5: Simple and Obvious is Good
If
the viewer needs to work too hard to figure out the primary brand
messaging, it’s an opportunity lost. The medium isn’t the same as print
design, where the viewer can stop, absorb the advertising and try and
understand the message. Consider that one, primary takeaway you’re
hoping to leave with the viewer. What is it? And does the wrap
effectively communicate it? Is it lost in the imagery? Distance
legibility is, of course, a primary concern. You have very
limited time to capture the viewer’s attention and have your brand
and message be understood and remembered.
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| Fleet wrap design for HVAC company in San Antonio, Texas. |
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| Retro themed HVAC truck wrap example. |
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| Truck branding for a HVAC company in South Carolina. Note how the brand identity is effectively integrated into the HVAC truck wrap. |
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| Retro themed truck wrap example for plumbing, heating and air company near Chicago. |
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| Truck wrap example showing effective brand integration for a heating and air contractor in Fayeteville. |
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| Retro themed fleet branding for an HVAC company in Union, NJ |
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| Retro fleet branding and truck wrap design for a heating and air conditioning company. |
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| Vehicle wrap design for a plumbing, heating and air conditioning company in Illinois. |
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| Branding and fleet wrap design for HVAC company in St. Louis, MO. |
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| Great truck wraps stand out - like this unique truck wrap for a Meridian, ID HVAC company shows. |
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| Award-winning Truck wrap example and identity development for HVAC contractor in Florida. |
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| Award-winning retro-themed partial truck wrap for heating and air firm in Palm Springs, CA. We also handled their branding. |
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| Award winning truck wrap design for heating and air conditioning company in Chicago area. |
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| Award winning retro truck wrap and branding example for HVAC contractor in FL. |
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| Making your HVAC truck wrap look the best is critical to brand success! |
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| One of our best truck design examples for an HVAC company in New Mexico. |
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| Truck wrap and branding for Union, NJ-based HVAC and plumbing company. |
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| Retro brand identity and truck wrap design for a Utah based heating and air conditioning contractor. |
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| Retro themed truck wrap design for HVAC contractor in Georgia. |
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| Truck wrap and rebranding for heating and cooling company in Tacoma, WA. |
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| Sometimes the best trucks are the simplest, as this example for a Bridgewater, MA based HVAC company shows. |
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| HVAC branding and truck wrap design for HVAC company in Oklahoma. |
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| Design for a Westfield, NJ based plumbing, heating and air conditioning company. |
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| Fleet wrap design for HVAC company in San Diego, CA. |
Click here for more examples of effective HVAC truck and vehicle wraps.
Dan Antonelli is the President and Creative Director of Graphic D-Signs, Inc, a NJ advertising agency specializing in small business advertising, marketing, and brand development, including HVAC logo design and HVAC web design services.
