New startup Wrappr reinvents wrapped-car OOH media category

Startup brothers Liam and Jonte Shaw are picking up steam with Australia’s top brands, having reinvented the way wrapped cars will play into the modern marketer’s outdoor media mix, using curated brand advocates, precise tracking and analytics, and on-demand activations.

Marketers have been skeptical of car wrapping in the past, and for good reason. Up until Nielson’s most recent 2019 Out of Home Advertising report, car wrapping performance has received very little attention from industry research bodies. Now, with third-party validation of the format, wrapped cars are set to become a much more frequent addition to the media mix.

According to Nielson, wrapped cars are the most-noticed transit media format, and second most-noticed OOH media format overall.

The Wrappr model allows brands to build ownership of a local area, and/or ownership of a customer persona. Having spoken to numerous others that have pursued similar media models, Liam and Jonte identified the three largest barriers to car wrapping success – previously, car wrapping companies would: 

1. have no way of ensuring safe driving from their drivers, 

2. have little-to-no way of tracking performance, and  

3. not align the drivers with the brands they were promoting.

To test their solution to these problems, while working with Foodora, Liam developed the concept for Wrappr and engaged the delivery service for what turned out to be a highly successful pilot campaign. Foodora ran a performance test between three cities – Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. In Melbourne and Sydney, Foodora spent 80% of its out-of-home budget on traditional outdoor advertising – billboards, bus wraps, station domination campaigns etc. In Brisbane, Foodora spent its remaining 20% of budget on Wrappr, with 20 Wrappr Advocates, and had the same investment in digital marketing as both Melbourne and Sydney.

Over six months, Brisbane sales grew by 108%, while sales in Melbourne and Sydney grew only 34% and 1% respectively. That’s an increase of more than 74% in sales between cities (when compared to traditional OOH mediums), with less than half of the investment.

 “If a brand wants to show off how loved they are by locals, or how loved they are by a particular customer segment, that’s what we do,” says Liam.

Wrappr works by aligning brands with advocates that have been tested through an NPS survey of more than 150 brands. The company currently services all capital cities and regional centres in Australia.

“So, for example, if Aldi came to us and wanted to do a campaign, we could connect them with only people who rated them an 8, 9, or 10 out of 10. Currently on our database, this would mean we can connect Aldi with 172 Advocates, who can then be filtered even further with respect to who Aldi would be looking for,” he explains.

Wrappr also incentivises and encourages safe driving – GPS devices are installed into all Advocate cars while they’re driving for an active campaign, monitoring speeding and unsafe braking or acceleration. Wrappr cars also have a sticker on the back asking “How’s my driving?” so members of the community can alert Wrappr of any unsafe driving. Any unsafe driving has penalties attached to it.

Wrappr is also very ROI focused.

“We don’t believe in hiding behind opaque methodologies,” explains Jonte Shaw. “We want to help advertising be seen as trusted and genuine, so showing a clear ROI, which is third-party verified, is vital to this.”  

To achieve this, Wrappr has partnered with market-leading retail analytics provider Blix, to provide their clients with granular, ROI-focused reporting and insights.

Blix provides Wrappr with real-time, third party-verified reach, frequency and uplift numbers for every Wrappr car. Through Blix identifying smartphones within the vicinity of Wrappr Advocate cars, and using Wrappr’s GPS tracking units, Wrappr is able to track precise advertising impact and drill down to wider insight.

Wrappr also enables brands to create On-Demand Activations, incentivising Advocates to drive or park their wrapped cars at key locations or events. For example, if a brand wanted to spontaneously target Australian Open or AFL Grand Final attendees, they could simply send out an On-Demand Activation to their Advocates and ask them to drive and/or park outside these events, and Wrappr will coordinate the activation and track the results.

“On-Demand Activations are a fantastic way for brands to create high-impact brand moments where all of their Advocates collect together. It’s pretty hard to ignore ten or more branded cars driving past you,” adds Liam.