Scott Campbell Commentary
(Scottsdale, AZ)

I've owned a very successful advertising agency since 1976. I've been in the advertising and marketing business a long time. Separately, I've been in the transit advertising business (formerly New England Transit Advertising; now Roadmark) since the early 80's.

In 1989, I first began researching the attributes of truck advertising. It all began when a regional wholesale grocer approached us (as a transit advertising company) and asked; "Since you manage bus advertising, can you find clients who want to use our trucks as mobile billboards here in New England?"

What I immediately found and recognized was that wholesale grocer fleets (and other very select truck fleets with local dedicated "modes of operation") were a gold mine that Madison Ave. should drool over.... if only they were responsible enough to take the time to learn about the "mechanics and dynamics" of sending a billboard size mural graphic (on a truck) into targeted urban neighborhoods. Doing so costs less, gains more impressions and broadens an advertisers "reach" controllably within a DMA (not to mention a dozen other values that stationary panels can't offer).

But Madison Ave. has been slow to find "confidence" in truck advertising, mainly because they don't understand what we have learned and know to be true; partly because they prefer to play it safe, not jeopardizing their client relationships and partly because they think (wrongly) they can't make as much profit from commissions on this form of outdoor media. If they really understood our media, they would never ask "Where's my truck?"

The vehicles we have in our portfolio have been closely scrutinized and carefully selected to perform "magnificently" as targeted mobile message displays. Forget that they are trucks (or buses) transporting cargo (or passengers) into populated city settings, day after day after day. Rather, think of them as an opportunity to "place" your graphic message with precision "in the face" of more people at less expense than you could with any other advertising medium...... because that is what they are and that is what we do!

Yes, we've "earned our stripes". We've spent over ten years carefully researching and developing this form of advertising to be "an effective value"; not for trucking companies, but for advertisers! I can't speak for other mobile media companies in our industry, but I can speak for Roadmark. "Three months or longer, you can't get a better value anywhere in the out-of-home advertising industry than you can achieve with our portfolio of vehicles". I'll prove it...... and guarantee it!