How to get a free car
Motorists finding logos a gas Companies
pay drivers to turn their vehicles into
billboards on four wheels
By Scott Bowles
USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES -- You can win a brand new car in California, and you
don't even have to enter a game show.
Of course, there's a catch.
Two companies are transforming the cars of willing commuters into
roaming billboards that could hawk everything from tacos to feminine
hygiene products. The practice, known as ''car wrapping,'' has caught the
interest of thousands of West Coast drivers, and the craze is chugging
east.
Leading the charge are Autowraps Inc. of San Francisco and FreeCar
Media of Los Angeles. The companies wrap cars from roof to rocker
panel with digitally-printed adhesive vinyl wrap that's commonly used on
city buses. The wrap, which covers even windows, turns cars into
commercials -- and reaches a greater audience than billboards, company
officials say. ''A billboard is stationary,'' says Larry Butler, co-founder of
FreeCar. ''You have to drive by it to see it. A wrapped car comes to
you.''
Autowraps pays participants up to $400 a month to have their vehicles
swathed in ads. FreeCar also pays motorists to wrap their cars, but in
addition gives selected drivers use of a new wrapped car for two years.
Drivers pay for insurance and gas for the privilege of driving sandwich
boards.
There is no shortage of potential salespeople. Since both companies began
operating earlier this year, more than 100,000 drivers have applied for
cars or wraps on the firms' Web sites, www.autowraps.com and
www.freecar.com.
''Hey, it covers my car payment, insurance, and then some,'' says Burbank
motorist Mark Fernandez, who agreed to have his new Volkswagen
Beetle splashed in an ad by Jamba Juice, a company based in San
Francisco.
Fernandez makes $400 a month being an auto-exhibitionist and makes up
to an additional $250 just for parking ''Beetlejuice'' at company events. He
says he doesn't mind the stares and comments his car attracts on the way
to work. In fact, the stand-up comedian admits to being ''a bit of an
attention whore anyway. I don't mind having an ad on my car at all.''
Critics mind. Several organizations decry car wrapping as marketing gone
amok, the latest affront to a public already under siege by advertising.
''Do we not get enough corporate bombardment already?'' asks Howard
Knight, spokesman for Los Angeles-based Media Message, which
monitors adult content of TV, radio and the Internet. ''College athletes are
wearing corporate logos. Solicitors bug as at home. Now my grandmother
can get a corporate endorsement? Where does it end?''
Knight says car wrapping might also violate zoning ordinances. ''You're
supposed to restrict billboards to commercial districts,'' he says. ''You
shouldn't be forced to look at one every morning when you walk to your
front door to get the newspaper.''
Free-speech issue
Autowraps owner Daniel Shifrin dismisses the legal question of car
wrapping. ''There's a little thing called the First Amendment,'' says Shifrin,
who started his company in January. ''If people want to have an
advertisement on their car, that's their choice.''
Besides, Shifrin says, car wrapping ''gives some of the advertising money
back to the individual consumer. If it helps him pay for his car, or earn a
little extra money to take a vacation, there's nothing wrong with that.''
Shifrin, of San Francisco, says he came up with the car wrap idea while
stuck in gridlock last year. ''I wasn't going anywhere, and I looked out of
my window and saw a huge Pepsi truck. The ad worked on me. I was
thirsty. Then I thought, why couldn't you do the same thing with a car?''
Both Autowraps and FreeCar invite prospective drivers to register on their
Web sites. Applicants fill out a demographic questionnaire, including their
age, sex, occupation and details of their commute. The longer the drive,
the better: Butler estimates that 4,000 people see an ad-wrapped vehicle
every hour it travels in a big city.
But don't bother offering your clunker for wrapping; advertisers prefer
newer head-turners (Beetles are a favorite), or big vehicles, such as
SUVs.
The demographic information is then passed on to advertisers. If an
applicant lives or drives in a desirable ''target area,'' the driver is chosen
for a wrap. Advertisers pay from $1,000 to $1,500 monthly per vehicle to
the car wrap companies, which design the ads and sheathe the cars in
slogans. The wrap, made of a thin film cut in 4-foot-long sections, can be
removed without damaging the car's paint job.
Selected drivers must follow firm rules. Autowraps and FreeCar require
motorists to sign a contract promising to drive a certain amount every
month, generally 800 miles. Participants typically must park in a visible
spot and wash the cars every two weeks.
Autowraps also requires that participants must not have received a moving
violation for the past 12 months, and a drunken-driving or felony
conviction eliminates a candidate altogether. Although most motorists are
on the honor system, the companies can track driving habits by the global
positioning systems that are installed in many of the cars.
Drivers also don't get to choose which products they hawk, which might
mean shilling for liquor or cigarette companies if those industries
participate. Motorists can decline an advertisement if they find the ad
offensive. So far, company officials say, there have been no conflicts,
''though the guys don't seem keen on having Tampax ads on their cars,''
Shifrin says with a laugh.
Spreading across the USA
The companies have wrapped more than 300 vehicles and hope to have
more than 5,000 on the road by the end of 2001. Though most drivers are
from California and the West Coast, drivers nationwide are invited to
apply, and cars have cropped up in Minneapolis and New York.
Transforming vehicles is nothing new. Since 1993, more than 5,000
municipal buses have been splashed in the vinyl advertising wrap. It was
created by the Minnesota company 3M. Cars, participants say, were the
next logical step.
''It's fun; it literally stops traffic,'' says Carissa Green, a Hollywood
choreographer whose Beetle is wrapped in a juice ad that makes her car
look like a purple grape.
''I have to give myself extra time to get to work because people want to
ask me about it. I make a little money and meet a lot of people,'' she says.
But the real lure of car wrapping, Shifrin says, is turning a daily headache
into profit. People ''love the idea of making money by driving,'' he says. ''If
you're going to get stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, why not get paid for
it?'' |
