Liberty Signs collaborate on London Cab wrap project

Fleet branding leader Liberty Signs and premier taxi wrap and taxi back advertising company Adflow Mobile Advertising recently collaborated on an exciting project - to produce eye-catching and impactful campaigns on the iconic ‘London Cab’. The results were so impressive that Liberty Signs entered the ASGA & FESPA Australia 2020 HP Awards in the Vehicle Wraps – Full Vehicle Wrap category, entered under the title “What’s that Guvnor?”  We talk to David Cross CEO, Liberty Signs about the project.

“Vehicle Advertising, is a high impact, cost-effective way to engage your customers,” says David, so it was no surprise that Liberty Signs was enthusiastic to work on the project with Adflow Mobile Advertising.

“The cabs operate across Melbourne and Sydney with campaigns often going that extra mile - the best example is the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory campaign where selected cabs had chocolates and the ‘Golden Ticket’ to give out to some lucky passengers. The golden ticket itself was wrapped in printed gold chrome wrapping vinyl. What better way to get your fleet to talk?” he says.

Many of the campaigns have a UK flavour that ties in with the London Cab nostalgia – Disney’s Mary Poppins, Netflix’s The Crown, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Hendricks Gin, to name a few.

The project was really quite complex, and David admits that the wraps are challenging to say the least.

“Our Project Management expertise is critical to delivering complex fleet projects like London Cabs. The cabs can only afford minimal time off the road with jobs completed in four to six hours – so this is real speed wrapping. The complicated compound curves make the wrap difficult and challenging even without the time pressures. Furthermore, we often wrap London Cabs at airport depots to ensure minimum turnaround time,” he explains.

Designs and artwork are provided by the client – large ultra high-resolution files with intricate artwork that are often many  GB in size.

“These need to be painstakingly split into wrap panels to enable a seamless 3D wrap using 2D artwork. Each wrap normally consists of 16 pieces, complicated by see-through panels for windows and taxi regulations. Timeframes are often tight with the time from signed off artwork to completion and wrap occurring within a week,” adds David, pointing out that as a short term wrap – speed of installation and ease of removability are the most important issues.

“To enable this, Liberty Signs uses Avery 1105 Easy Apply with its conformability and stretch capability. A high level of skill is needed to prevent image distortion and accurate matching across panels,” he explains.

As can be seen, the results are stunning and certainly something you will notice next time you are out and about. Keep your eye out for a wrapped London Cab … it just may be riding around in time for the next  Bond movie!