Investing In A Vehicle Wrap For Your Business

Commercial vehicles have an obligation to transport either products, passengers, or employees to various job sites each day. They all want to continue to stay in business. Why not stand out in this process? You could be extending thousands of impressions to potential new clients through a vibrant new vehicle wrap. This opportunity is the ultimate way for a business to accelerate finding new leads and creating opportunities.

Take a local plumber for example. Perhaps it is a smaller operation with one service truck and is newer to the plumbing industry. When just getting started as a business, they network with friends and family to find new plumbing jobs. Imagine in this situation, this outfit has a job at a location where hundreds of locals pass by this job each and every day. This business could be there an average of three days to complete a plumbing project. If there is nothing on this blank white van, then how likely is this plumber going to find new work? They could instead simultaneously be working on someone’s bathroom and still advertise.

If this plumber gets their van wrapped with a catchy, colorful design, then while that van sits in their customer’s driveway they could also attract new customers. Each day all those locals pass by, taking notice to this new plumbing company and the services the new van wrap is promoting. These people who, when least expected, may also need or know someone that needs to find a plumber. This cycle continuously helps local business owners promote and build market share within a company. Unlike traditional billboards that carry monthly reoccurring rent, wrap owners get to own a mobile billboard.

Depending on the type of vehicle wrap, the cost does fluctuate to a degree along with the grade of the film purchased. To better explain, let’s look at a couple of different examples. First, consider a Ford Transit Connect, a smaller utility van in comparison to the full-size transit. With a high-performance wrap and a design from Slicks’ designers, you would be looking at roughly $2,200 before tax. This is without any roof coverage or bumper coverage. Everything on the vehicle would be covered, outside of the bumpers and the roof. The plastic bumpers are not wrap friendly and the roof won’t be seen by most customers.

For DOT regulations and driver safety, wrap companies do not cover the front driver, passenger or windshield areas. All other glass areas can be covered with an optional perforated window graphic film. Larger vans with a wheelbase around 136” and holding similar coverage run a higher cost. It can be closer to the $3,200-$4,500.00 range depending on the final size and coverage needed. Feel free to call us an ask for estimates specific for your vehicle.

Our second example is calculated on a Ford Focus. To avoid clashing with the design the bumpers, door handles, mirrors and roof will need coverage. These cars sit much lower to the ground allowing most to be able to see the entire car. This ends up adding time and material to the cost of this car wrap. Bringing the average cost up to the $2,800.00-$3,400.00 range using a high-performance film.

There are alternative films with an intermediate grade performance guarantee for those looking to save money. Downside, customers start to sacrifice performance along with age expectancy. These films typically last half of the lifetime of the high-performance vehicle wrap films.

It’s first important to understand the difference of the two films’ make-up (cast versus calendered). High performance films are made from a cast vinyl. Intermediate films are made from calendared vinyl.

A cast film is made by pouring the PVC based film into a rolling mold, enhanced with plasticizers to improve the film’s overall conforming function. The advantage promotes itself when an installer is trying to wrap something like a door. The low spot in the door handle area requires the film to be moderately stretched for complete door coverage. Without a cast base film, the vinyl would start to shrink and pop up creating an air pocket. Eventually it cracks, collects moisture and starts to fail in a complete section on the vehicle wrap. Cast vinyl wraps typically last 3-5 years and can easily surpass 5 years with extra care and maintenance.

Calendared films allow typically a 20-25% savings on the original cost of a high-performance vehicle wrap. These films are made like a pizza. The calendared film is stretched to the size of the raw material roll. Slicks will then print the customer’s graphics on and install this intermediate vehicle wrap. Not only is this film only rated for 1-2 years. The failure rate in recessed channels or compound curves is much higher than a high-performance vehicle wrap.

Yes! Our company designs, prints and installs all of our commercial graphics.  Our vehicle graphic designers are trained to build eye catching graphics that will make your business stand out in your market. You always get the last say on how your graphics will look! We only install after you are completely satisfied with the design.