The Australian technology startup is looking to challenge traditional outdoor media with a peer economy-based car wrapping model.

Already working with the likes of Foodora and Woolworths-owned Jimmy Brings, Wrappr is looking to ‘reinvent’ the wrapped car OOH media category. The Melbourne-based startup is a combined platform for consumer advocacy, gig work and dynamic outdoor media.

Founded by brothers Liam and Jonte Shaw – both holding the title of cofounder and director – who say they are looking to reassure marketers of the power of wrapped car advertising.

“The goal of a Wrappr campaign is for brands to build ownership over a local area, a customer persona or both,” explains Liam. “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.”

Wrappr works by aligning brands with an existing database of brand advocates, each tested through an NPS survey of more than 150 brands.

Liam gives an example: “If Aldi came to us and wanted to do a campaign, we could connect them with only people who rated them an eight, nine 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.” 

A fleet of advocate cars is then deployed for the duration of the campaign, with advocates incentivised to drive and park in key target areas as defined by the brand.

Prior to Nielson’s most recent 2019 ‘Out of Home Advertising’ report, the industry has had little real data on the performance of wrapped cars as an advertising format. Nielson has since deemed wrapped cars as among the most-noticed transit media formats – 326% more noticed than rail ads and 106% more than taxi ads – and the second-most-noticed OOH media format overall – 64% more than street furniture and 16% more than digital billboards.

According to Jonte Shaw, proving its worth is a high priority of Wrappr’s. “We don’t believe in hiding behind opaque methodologies.”

“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.”

Wrappr partners with retail analytics firm Blix to deliver its measurement and reporting, combining GPS data from units built into advocates’ cars with smartphone detection and tracking. Wrappr says it can read impressions, close-up impressions, repeat impressions, in-store foot traffic uplift and time spent in target advertising area all through Blix’s smartphone detection technology. 

Following a successful pilot campaign with Foodora, Liam Shaw says, though it’s early days, he already sees many exciting prospects from this new form of outdoor media.

The pilot campaign saw Foodora spend 80% of its OOH budget on traditional outdoor advertising in Melbourne and Sydney – billboards, bus wraps etc – and the remaining 20% on 20 Wrappr advocate cars in Brisbane, with the same digital investment in all three cities.

According to Wrappr, over six months Brisbane sales grew by 108%, and sales in Melbourne and Sydney grew only 34% and 1% respectively – an increase of more than 74% in sales between cities with less than half of the investment.

Foodora country manager Jeroen Willems attributed the success of the campaign to the fact that Wrappr was able to provide OOH advertising at a “fraction of the cost of traditional options”, insisting that the format gave Foodora “much more precision than otherwise would be possible in out of home.” 

Further Reading:

• New Australian AI platform to predict digital ad success before you hit send »
• Juggling family in startup land – marketing versus motherhood »
• Queensland Government kills OOH junk food advertising »

Image credit: Supplied