Wrap advertising

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This Minneapolis light-rail vehicle is wrapped in an iPod advertisement.

Wrap advertising, is the practice of completely covering (wrapping) a vehicle in an advertisement or livery. Large vehicles effectively become ‘mobile billboards’ afterward. This can be achieved by simply painting the vehicle surface, but it is becoming more common today to use large vinyl sheets as decals. These can be removed with relative ease, making it much less expensive to change from one advertisement to another. Vehicles with large, flat surfaces, such as buses and light-rail carriages, are fairly easy to work with, though smaller cars with curved surfaces can also be wrapped in this manner.

This train bears GNER’s standard livery rather than an advertisement, but as it was on lease from Eurostar, the livery was applied using vinyl.

Recent advancements in vinyl development have lead to new types of vinyls specifically for doing wraps. 3M's line of ControlTac+ w/Comply vinyls feature air channels to prevent bubbles, and microscopic glass beads that prevent the adhesive from taking hold until squeegeed down. This feature allows the material to be lifted and reapplied as needed during the wrapping process, without compromising the longevity of the wrap.[1]

Decals can be made to cover side and rear windows on a vehicle, though for obvious safety reasons, the front windows used by the driver are not covered. The decals on side windows are typically perforated so that it is still possible for passengers to look outside. A wrap must often be divided into a number of smaller pieces to appropriately cover any movable panels on the vehicle, such as the fuel tank cover, trunk (boot) openings, and other doors.

Wrapping is also sometimes used instead of paint as a less-permanent way of applying its operator’s standard livery than paint. This has become particularly common in the United Kingdom where, since the privatisation of British Rail, it has become quite frequent for trains to be transferred from one company to another and thus require many changes of livery.

This has become a whole new line of work. Companies have opened shops around the United States. There is now even a school training people in the complex skills of wrapping vehicles.