Having written two months ago about the heart ruling the head in some fleet managers’ purchase decisions, I was pleased to read a quote from the EXA corporation, which builds software and studies vehicle aerodynamics: “We know from experience that truck operators do partly make their decision based on design, and might not embrace a radical new look that moves too far away from the more traditional styling of established brands.”
In other words, any future moves to redesign road freight from the ground up will not just leave UK trailer manufacturers high and dry, the take-up rate from hauliers will also be slow. I suppose this is also why aircraft still look how they did 40 years ago. There is no sense of: “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” What businesses actually say is: “But we like the way our old mousetraps look!”
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Ideally, third parties would not see your mousetraps/delivery vehicles at all, but if it is unavoidable, the branding opportunity cannot be overlooked. And the more your vehicle represents your brand, the greater the problem.
To take an implausible example, if a lorry shaped like a recumbent Katie Hopkins could save your company £50,000 in fuel costs, would you run it? Would your driver even climb in it? You might prefer to let the trailer part run out of fuel. Perhaps road freight should follow the example of rail: Anonymise the journey. Rather than treat transport as an advertising opportunity, think of it instead as a money-saving exercise. Unbranded, identical vehicles would take the subjectivity out of purchase and contract decisions.
A logistics freight company such as Norbert Dentressangle offers this service to “the most successful companies in the world”. Meanwhile, the smallest of small businesses may also turn down the opportunity to market themselves to bystanders and overtakers if they are simply hiring a van for a one-off job.
Everyone in between sees the side of a new truck as a blank advertising hoarding. The moment you take that leap of imagination, the look of the whole vehicle – aggressive, futuristic, shooting black smoke from raised tailpipes, or blocking a street as it tries a three-point-turn – sends associative messages to the public.
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By GlobalDataYou might remember a photo of a lorry with the ‘We Fit!’ branding which had tried and failed to fit under a railway bridge in South London a year or so ago. An unbranded truck would not have been ironic. No irony = no headline = no reputational hit! Perhaps the message is: If you’re going to pay a price for advertising, let it be a price you can control.
Our vehicle finance director, Graham Hill, wrote in the Financial Times in March about a couple of jargon-initials: PCP and GMFV (guaranteed minimum future value). To quote his example: “Environmental concern about diesel and increased congestion charges creates a risk that diesel car prices could drop through the floor. With PCP, if the value dropped after signing your deal, you could just hand the car back at the end and walk away.”
Or if the true market value exceeds the GMFV, that money could go towards the cost of financing a future vehicle, or switching to the latest model for the same monthly payment.
Typically, drivers will pay a bit less on a personal contract hire (PCH) than on a PCP, because many contract hire rates have substantial discounts and bonuses built into the calculation. Yet they are less likely to sign up to a PCH in the first place because dealers make more commission on PCP deals and the range of options at decision time tends to be vanishingly narrow.
The NACFB’s view is that brokers should be involved to talk through the options. New car registrations remained broadly flat in February – dropping 0.3% – which perhaps is more about private owners waiting for the 17 plate than anything else. Even the number plate is a branding exercise: Who has the newest fleet? Whose vehicles are most up-to-date?
The goalposts are changing every week – listen to the Mayor of London’s recent salvos against the diesel engine, and you can see how for the fleet manager, long-termism is now a game with complex rules.
Robin Skuse is press and marketing officer at the NACFB
