by Shandra Martinez
When the NCAA Final Four came to San Antonio this spring, each of the college basketball teams had a bus wrapped with graphics featuring its school colors.
What might have surprised Villanova University’s basketball players when they walked out of the Alamodome less than an hour after defeating the University of Michigan is that their bus already wore the logo as the 2018 NCAA Champions. As the team headed to the hotel, the decorated bus did a victory lap, eliciting a lot of whoops and hollers along the way.
“It was just really cool to be a part of,” said David Bratcher, president of Daisy Charters & Shuttles, who gives the credit to the National Collegiate Athletic Association for coming up with the plan to wrap his buses for the high-profile tournament.
These days, most college and universities want to know about the potential for having a bus wrapped with the team’s colors and logo when asking for transportation contract bids. But what has become considered an important perk for a client isn’t always the best financial decision for the operator.
If the wrapped bus will be used only three days a week for eight months, it can’t serve other clients during the other days because they can be touchy about that, Bratcher said. One way around that issue is to use a logo that is transferable to another bus. This also helps if the bus with the wrap runs into a mechanical issue and another bus is needed.
Making it lucrative
Short-term wraps can be lucrative. Charter bus companies handling transportation during conventions sometimes get requests to turn their buses into rolling billboards for a few days.
The client picks up the cost for the wrap—which run $6,000 to $8,000—and pays a daily fee, including for the days the bus is out of commission having a wrap put on and taken off.
“They are using the bus all week long, you know exactly where that bus is going to be used, and you do not have to consider where else it may be used. That wrapped bus is assigned to only that client for the week,” said Bratcher, who gets these kinds of requests a few times a year.
Installing wraps is labor-intensive, though can be done quickly if enough employees are put to the task, said Jay Lieske, president and owner of Busgraphix in Tempe, Arizona. A wrap takes roughly 20 to 35 man hours, depending on the model of bus. A wrap can stay on a bus for a decade or longer. “We’ll put a crew of two or three installers on a bus, and they can do it in a day,” Lieske said.
Cheaper than ad space
The appeal of fleet graphics is they cost pennies on the dollar compared to ad space in magazines, newspapers, radio and even outdoor billboards, said Simon Bois, executive director of sales for Turbo Images in St. Georges, Quebec.
“People will pay more attention to a well-designed graphics or decal on a vehicle than a billboard,” Bois said. “It’s very, very strong entertainment and retention ratio for viewer impressions.”
Bus operators don’t need to give away the whole bus to create a revenue stream. They can lease an inset on the side, back or front of the bus. There’s potential to make a few thousand dollars a month, said Charles Veilleux, director of sales for Turbo Images.
“Keep your name on the side and just lease out the back, which is the best place in terms of marketing because people will always see it in traffic and on the road,” Veilleux said.
Good brand builder
A few decades ago, Great Canadian Holidays and Coaches began using the exteriors of its buses to promote Canadian unity and pride with images of scenes of Canada and some of its most famous and notable citizens.
“Our coaches are very recognizable, which has been really good for the brand,” said Larry Hundt, owner of Great Canadian Holidays and Coaches.
The company has a fleet of 65 vehicles, with 50 covered in Canadian themes, including vinyl wraps designed by his daughter, Andrea Lorentz, the company’s marketing and brand manager. The rest are wrapped for clients such as hockey teams, universities, a radio station and even a theater company.
While sports teams use the buses for only part of the year, the contracts bring in steady business during the offseason. Hundt has had success using the buses for other charter business involving K-12 schools and sports teams. Clients pay to have the buses wrapped, which usually involves a contract for a minimum of three years, he said.
Most recently, the company began offering charter service for Mirvish Productions, a theater company in Toronto. Advertising on the buses is helping grow demand. Hundt predicts the three-times-a-week shuttle could expand to daily.
“Every coach company has a billboard that they could use, promoting motorcoach travel, and none of them seem to be doing it,” he said. “It’s a missed opportunity, as I see it.”
