A Sound Graphic Plan

Public-transit authorities have long sold advertising space for bus, shelter and station graphics. Increasingly, forward-thinking public officials recognize the cost-effectiveness and strong reach of vehicle wraps to bolster advertising revenues.

Clear Channel Outdoor’s Seattle office recently expanded its contract with Sound Transit, greater Seattle’s public-transit authority that serves 19 million riders throughout the region. In addition to its current contract, which stipulates that Clear Channel outfit all of Sound Transit’s 243 buses with graphics, the entities have also signed a five-year, revenue-sharing partnership to wrap Sound Transit’s light-rail trains.

For the test-run wrap, which advertises Seattle’s City College, Clear Channel designed the wrap with Adobe’s Illustrator software. To fabricate the approximately 2,500-sq.-ft. wrap, Clear Channel contracted Portland, OR’s Haugen Advertising & Graphics, a large-format service provider. Using 3M’s 3552C, a 2-mil, opaque, cast film designed for easy applications and removal on short-run installations that features the company’s Comply air-release adhesive. The shop printed the graphics at 360 dpi on its EFI-VUTEk 150 roll-to-roll printer, and protected them from Seattle’s rainy, humid climate with 3M’s 8519 luster-finish overlaminate, which Haugen applied with a GBC Pro-Tech Orca III laminator.

Clear Channel handled the application process, which required 48 man-hours. Its trio of installers completed the job with no tools except squeegees and X-Acto knives.