Good truck, good crew, good-looking wrap. So why doesn't the phone ring?

Count how many were checked on your last wrap

1. 01A standard to check it againstThe layout was approved because it looked good on a screen. Nobody drove past it.
2. 02A distance testThe phone number that reads fine on a 24-inch monitor is three inches tall on the truck.
3. 03A decision about what reads firstName, trade and phone all set at the same size, so none of them wins the glance.
4. 04The trade, in a wordA logo and a list of services, and no single word that says plumber.
5. 05A promise a customer can hold you toQuality service describes everyone on the road. Done Once. Done Right. describes one company.
6. 06One category instead of a capability listEight services in a column. A passing driver reads none of them and remembers a column.
7. 07A plan for the backThe driver behind you at the light, the one with the most time to read, sees a blank tailgate.
8. 08Contrast checked in shade, not just at noonDark type on a dark truck looks fine in the parking lot at midday and disappears at 5 pm.
9. 09The name kept off seams and glassA name laid across a door gap, or run up onto a window, breaks in half from the next lane.
10. 10A contact path that matches the nameA web address that is not the business name, in type nobody could copy down anyway.
11. 11A plan for truck twoThe second vehicle goes to a different shop, gets a different layout, and the fleet stops matching.
12. 12A production check before printA font that is crisp on screen turns to fuzz at forty inches wide, and the outline weight collapses at distance.
13. 13The right measure of successThe owner loves it. The measure is whether a stranger can repeat the name after one pass.
14. 14Someone accountable for whether it worksThe shop's job ended at installation. Whether the truck wins work was never anyone's problem.

Seven or fewer is the common result, and it is not a judgment. Nobody in the chain that produced the truck was asked to run them. The 45 MPH Test is these checks written down as a standard, and every wrap we produce is run against it before it prints.

Common questions

Why does a good-looking wrap fail to bring in calls?

Because looking good and being readable at speed are different tests, and most wraps only take the first one. A layout approved on a screen is judged parked, up close, by people who already know the company. On the road it is read at 45 MPH by a stranger who does not. Name, trade, promise and contact path each have to survive that pass, and a shop that sells vinyl has no reason to check.

Can a sign shop or a freelance designer lay out my wrap?

They can produce a layout. What they usually cannot do is test it, because there is no standard in the room to test against. Ask how the design was checked for distance, for the driver behind you, for contrast in shade, and for the second truck. If the answer is that it looked good on the proof, the checks did not happen.

Why can't I design my own truck?

For the same reason a good contractor does not do his own bookkeeping: it is a different job, with its own tests, and the mistakes are invisible to the person making them. You know your business better than anyone. That is exactly why you cannot see it the way a stranger does from the next lane.

How do I find out how many of these checks my current wrap passed?

Upload a side or rear photo to the free Wrap Audit. It scores the truck against the 45 MPH Test, category by category, and tells you which of these checks were missed.