What Are Commercial Car Wraps?

Nothing provides stronger, more effective, and cost-efficient business advertising like vehicle wraps. Vehicle wraps are when you use a combination of digital artwork and printed vinyl to transform your vehicles into mobile branding machines. Wraps will feature your logo, business information, and other branding elements that will give your fleet a professional look, catch customers’ attention, and generate business wherever it goes. Wraps can be as simple as cut lettering that spells out your business name and services, to epic art projects that incorporate full photo images, patterns, and advertising that can cover almost every inch of your vehicle.

Dollar for dollar there's no better advertising investment

Here we’d like to tell you about the vehicle wrap basics: the materials, how the process works, and how wraps will help increase your business. Let’s get started!

What is vehicle wrap vinyl?

Wraps come in many shapes and forms, but at their most basic vehicle wraps are sheets of custom made vinyl that get applied to the outside of your business's trucks, vans, and cars. It typically starts as a large white sheet that is digitally printed with full-colour graphics, text, and images. The material has an adhesive back and special properties to avoid bubbling, colour fading, and tearing. Once the wrap is printed and custom cut to your specific vehicle, it gets installed by trained professionals who know who properly install the vinyl around the intricate curves, contours, and body of your vehicle.

Premium vehicle wrap vinyl has a lifespan between 5-7 years, at which point you may see some discolouration and cracks appearing in the material. Commercial car wraps are safe to remove and do not hurt the paint underneath.  There’s also a special window advertising wrap vinyl that acts as a one-way glass, allowing you to brand the outside of your windows while still being able to safely see when in the vehicle.

How does it all work?

The typical vehicle wrap process consists of four steps: Consultation, Artwork, Production, and Installation.

Consultation

During the initial consultation, you’ll define what objectives and goals you’d like to see from your wrap advertising. This includes things like an increase in business, highlighting specific services you’d like to expand, defining your brand colours and guidelines, and images and themes you want to emphasize. Using this information your wrap team will begin to conceptualize designs, motifs, and ideas that will ultimately turn into your new vehicle branding and wraps. Additionally, the consultation assesses the overall needs of the project, including a budget, wrap coverage, and types of vinyl that will be used.

Artwork

Trucks advertising with bold designs engage with your customers in ways other media can't

After the consultation, your wrap team will have a good idea of what you’re trying to accomplish. This is where the real fun begins! You’ll work directly with a graphic artist who will draft a design proof using an exact digital template of your vehicle. Typically this starts with a one-on-one session with your designer where you will work together to build the groundwork of your wrap design. After these initial steps, you’ll be sent a series of design proofs where changes to the layout and details of the wrap can be changed. Once everyone agrees that you’ve got a great wrap design, it's time to turn the digital into the physical!

These vans use a combination of wraps and cut graphics

The commercial car wrap design is an extremely important step when creating your vehicle advertising brand.  During this process, the colours, logo, and layout of your wrap design will be established and used to create the artistic template for the next vehicles you get wrapped.  It's important that your advertising wrap design is dynamic enough to be used on all types of vehicles like cars, vans, and trucks.  

Production

UV laminate protects your investment and makes your car wraps easy to clean

Now that you’ve got a stellar vehicle wrap design, it's up to the production team to turn it into a reality.  They’ll take the digital file of your wrap and break it down into a series of panels and pieces that will be applied to your vehicle.  These pieces will get printed out and have a special UV protective laminate applied to the vinyl. This laminate helps protect the vinyl from sun damage and make it easier to clean and maintain.  Once these pieces are printed and trimmed to size, the next step is to get them on your vehicle!

Installation

Consistent branding helps with customer recall

Working with your schedule, your wrap team will schedule a date for your wrap installation. Depending on how much area your wrap will cover and the size of your vehicle, the installation can take anywhere from one to three days to complete.  During the installation process, your wrap will be trimmed, heated, and taped to ensure a clean installation and professional-looking wrap advertising.  This attention to detail keeps every vehicle you have branded easily identifiable and recognizable by your customers.

Cleaning and Maintenance

Keeping your wrap in tip-top shape is an easy process. While it's not recommended to take wrapped vehicles through a car wash, a simple mixture of dish soap and water is enough to clean a wrap using a soft sponge. Tars and oils can be cleaned off a wrap using citrus-based adhesive removers.

Make your commercial car wrap work for you

Now that you understand a little more about how vehicle wraps work, start letting them work for you.  Wrapping your vehicle fleet will make strong impressions on your customers all while building your brand presence.  If you're just starting out or already have some branding you are ready to improve, click the link below and schedule a FREE consultation to learn more about how vehicle advertising can help grow your business.