What to put on a vehicle wrap: Emotion

Emotion. Pure and simple. Instead of putting lists of services and points of contact and generic tag lines and pictures, what your vehicle wrap should actually be doing is communicating emotion. Why? Because people buy based on emotion. At SmartWrap we believe people buy on emotion, and then use logic to justify that purchase. This is contrary to the vast majority of marketing we see. A lot of marketing uses logic to try to convince you that some product or service is a good idea. This is exactly the wrong way around and the main reason why most marketing isn’t as successful as it could be.

So how does this translate into vehicle wraps? How can a truck or van wrap communicate emotion? You can start by eliminating anything that resembles logic and concentrate on things that appear emotional, or have the ability to cause an emotional response.

Nothing kills emotion like lists and bullet points, so step one would be to remove all bullet points and replace with a tagline that has the ability to communicate a feeling to the person reading it. Tag lines like “One call does it all” and “we’re the best” that do not convey emotion should also be replaced. You should only have one tag line on your wrap.

Step two: Eliminate photographic images. There are very few exceptions to this general rule. What photography does is causes the viewer to spend a disproportionate amount of time looking at the image, instead of at your logo. It causes people to NOT remember your company by focusing their attention away from your logo.

Step three: Consider a mascot. Mascots can be extremely effective at building goodwill in the hearts of your potential customers. They can be super effective at helping people remember your company name if the mascot has everything to do with your company name and story. For example, let’s say your company is Bolt Electrical and your focus is residential. A mascot character of a bolt would be extremely effective in helping people remember your name. They might be sitting at home and thinking they need to call an electrician and saying “What’s the name of that company with the friendly little bolt character…oh ya! It’s Bolt!” If you get really creative your mascot can actually explain the “why” of your business. Why do you exist, what’s your motivation, who are you in your heart. That’s the kind of emotion we’re talking about here. The story you tell should really help explain who you are to people who don’t know you.

Step four: Consider a deeper meaning. This continues with our last point about story telling. If the character and or graphics can piggy back on your origin story it will really help to get people to remember you. People remember emotions. Facts? Not so much. Just think of one of the better days of your own life. Try to remember how that felt. Now try to remember every single detail of that day. It should be obvious that recalling that emotion is so much quicker and easier, which is exactly what we’re trying to communicate in 3 seconds or less on a vehicle wrap. An origin story is something taken from the comic book world. Every super hero has a story that explains how they came into existence and what motivates them to continue being a super hero. Your business should discover it’s own origin story, not invent it.

So to wrap it up (pardon the pun) get rid of bullet points and get a tagline. Get rid of photos and get a great logo. Get rid of random graphics and get a mascot. Get rid of generic and get creative!