NJ Bus Advertising New York City Bus BillboardsOver 2 Million Impressions Per Month
Bus Advertising And The Number One Vinyl Adhesive To Get The Job Done Right!
By Paul Simari
Let me start by saying I’ve been involved with all forms of print production for over 22 years now and I’m still involved today. I own and operate a small out of home marketing and advertising firm just west of NYC. Our specialty is moving billboards Buses and Trucks etc…
Those who know me understand that I don’t do things half assed!
That’s right; I only do things the “right way” or the way they should be done to achieve the correct result and I don’t cut corners to save time or money. With my experience it only comes back to bit you in the ass when you do, been there, done that! Let’s talk about choosing the correct vinyl adhesive for your next bus advertising campaign. There are allot of factors involved when choosing the vinyl material for your bus ad campaign such as: What type of sub-straight or surface will you be working with? Is it metal, plastic or both? What are the weather conditions like? Is it really hot, cold, sunny or rainy? How long will you run your bus advertising campaign? Will you run it for a day, week, month, year, two years, five years, or ten years? Do the buses get washed on a daily basis? Who will design your ads? Who will print your ads? Who will install your bus ads?
These are real questions you should be asking prior to the start of your bus advertising campaign. I say this because it’s true, wrapping a three dimensional object with two dimensional graphics that come in pieces and are sticky on one side make for a challenging installation experience to say the least.
Installing vinyl onto curved surfaces such as vehicle fenders, hoods, hatch backs, tail gates, spoilers, roofs and bumpers with rounded corners make it difficult to register any graphic advertisement.
Most of the time the installers are working on top of scaffolding handling the vinyl adhesive ever so carefully not to make the material stretch or fold onto itself.
After personally experiencing and using all different makes and manufactures of vinyl adhesive over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that 3M Scotchprint® vinyl material is by far the most expensive and totally worth every penny you spend on it!
Here are my reasons why:
3M Scotchprint® is engineered with just about every vehicle wrap use taken into consideration. For example, let’s say you would like to run a bus advertising campaign for just one week or maybe you need it to last for ten years. 3M makes a vinyl with just enough adhesive to last that long. I’ve worked on campaigns that lasted one day, also ten years. 3M’s secret adhesive formula has variations of microscopic adhesive bubbles layered within all of its vinyl. One layer is use for positioning the vinyl (known as Controltac®). The other layers are dedicated to the adhesion depending on its use and length of time needed for the campaign. Once in place, heat and pressure are applied to pop all layers of adhesive giving the vinyl the longevity needed for the campaign.
Additional elements are added to ensure quality printing and weather resistance. For example: UV toners and inks keep the sun from fading the printed images. A clear UV Over-Lamination is also used to protect the printed graphic from use of a bus or car wash. The Clear UV coating also protects from scratches, the sun, rain, cracking and peeling.
I guess what I like most about using 3M Scotchprint® Vinyl is the removal of the vinyl.
Oh…, you forgot about that! Yeah, I learned about it the hard way myself.
We used other competitors vinyl back in the early 2000’s for a bus campaign. Can anyone say “penny wise, pound foolish”? During that two year campaign we had to replace ten out of ten faded and peeling ads twice not to mention when we started to remove the ads the paint on the brand new two year old buses started to peel off with the vinyl. We ended up paying five times more in damages to the buses then we saved on the “Less Expensive” vinyl material, lets just call it CHEAP!!!
Overall here are the selling points to using 3M Scotchprint® Vinyl:
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