Mobile advertising
The only billboard in Austin that rides inside the barricades.
During SXSW, ACL, a UT home game or any ordinary Saturday on Sixth Street, downtown turns into a place where vehicles can't go and people are shoulder to shoulder. That's exactly where the fleet works.
Here's the honest pitch. Out-of-home advertising in Austin mostly means a static board on a highway that commuters stopped seeing years ago, or a wrapped truck parked wherever the city will let it sit. Both are fighting for the attention of people who are driving.
A pedicab has the opposite problem, which is to say it doesn't have the problem. It moves at about walking speed, right beside the sidewalk, through crowds of people who are out on foot with nothing to do but look around. Your ad is at eye level, it's in motion, and — the part brands consistently underestimate — it's carrying somebody. People wave at it. They ask the driver what it is. They photograph it and put those photographs online, which is reach a vinyl sign will never generate on its own.
The thing that actually separates us is scale plus proof. We can put a campaign across as many as 100 pedicabs, and every brand we name is on a photograph of one of our own carriages — with the company name and phone lettered in the same frame, because the city requires it. Most operators give you a list. We can show you the bike.
If a smaller buy at a better-chosen event will do more for you than a big one at the wrong event, we'd rather tell you that up front than take the bigger cheque and watch it underperform.
The formats
Four ways to put a brand on the fleet.
Most campaigns use two or three of these together. Once we know what you're trying to do, we'll tell you which combination fits your budget and your event.
A campaign we're proud of
National Geographic, SXSW: 24 cabs, the whole festival.
Nat Geo were promoting Life Below Zero and an activation called "Escape the Cold" on East 2nd Street. We wrapped 24 pedicabs and circulated them for the entire run of SXSW — not a booth people had to find, but two dozen moving ads pushing the crowd toward the door.
That's still the shape of our best work: pick the event, saturate it, let the fleet do the wayfinding. We've run the same play since for SXSW Sydney's scan-to-win campaign and for Miller Lite across Austin City Limits.
24 cabs. Ten days. One festival.
That was National Geographic at SXSW — a fleet circulating the whole run rather than a booth people had to find. It is still the clearest thing we can show you about how this works.
Where to spend it
The Austin calendar, and what each one is actually good for.
Not every event suits every campaign. This is roughly how we'd steer a brand with a fixed budget and one weekend to spend it — useful whether or not you end up hiring us.
SXSW
March · downtown core
The highest-density week of the year and the one where our advantage is biggest, because so much of downtown is shut to vehicles. It's also the most competitive — every brand in tech is shouting at once. Go big or don't go: a handful of cabs vanishes here, but a saturated fleet is impossible to miss. Book early, wraps need production time.
Austin City Limits
Two October weekends · Zilker Park
A captive, repeat audience across two weekends, and a long walk between the gates and anywhere you can leave a car. That walk is the opportunity — tired festivalgoers are extremely receptive to a ride, which makes ACL the best event on the calendar for sponsored free rides.
Moody Center
Year-round · UT campus
Concerts and Longhorns basketball, with a defined crowd surge before and after every event. Good for a brand that wants repeated exposure to the same audience across a season rather than one enormous weekend.
UT football & graduation
Fall Saturdays · spring · campus and downtown
Game days move an enormous crowd on foot between campus, the stadium and the downtown bars. Graduation is quieter, but the crowd skews toward visiting families with money to spend — which suits an entirely different advertiser.
Sixth Street, Rainey & West Sixth
Every weekend · downtown
Sixth closes to cars on weekend nights, which is the argument for a pedicab in one sentence. Rainey is younger and more compressed; West Sixth skews a little older. For a long-running campaign, weekends downtown deliver more total nights of exposure than any single festival.
South Congress
Daytime and evening · SoCo
The most photographed strip in the city, with the skyline framed straight down the avenue. If your campaign lives or dies on people posting pictures of it, this is where you want the fleet working.
Blues on the Green & Austin Food & Wine
Summer · spring
Smaller, friendlier, family-and-foodie crowds. Lower cost of entry, and a far better fit for local and regional brands than trying to out-shout national money at SXSW.
How it runs
From your artwork to bikes on the street.
Tell us the goal and the dates
Product launch, festival activation, a season-long presence. The answer changes what we'd recommend and what it costs.
We scope the fleet
How many bikes, which format, which districts and hours. We'll say so if a smaller buy at the right event beats a bigger one at the wrong event.
Artwork and production
You send the files, we handle printing and installation on the carriages. Wraps need real lead time; panels can move fast.
The fleet runs
Drivers briefed on your talking points, in your shirts if you want them, working the routes we agreed.
You get proof
Photographs from the street, so you have something to show your team that isn't an estimate.
We tell you what we saw
Which corners worked, which nights were dead, what we'd change next time. Nobody else will give you that and it's the most useful part.
Questions we get
Straight answers.
How many pedicabs can you run for one campaign?
We can put a campaign across as many as 100 pedicabs, and we put 24 wrapped cabs on the street for National Geographic through the full run of SXSW. For most brands the right number is smaller than that — we'd rather size it to the event than sell you bikes that sit idle.
What does it cost?
It depends on the format, the number of bikes and how many days you're running. A panel campaign on a few cabs and a full wrap across a festival fleet aren't in the same universe. Call (512) 633-2405 with your dates and budget and you'll get a real number, not a brochure.
Do you produce the artwork?
We handle printing and installation. Design usually comes from your team or your agency — send the files and we'll tell you what needs adjusting to sit properly on the carriage panels.
Can a sponsor pay for people's rides?
Yes, and it's one of the most effective things you can do with the fleet. Guests ride free, your brand is the reason, and your driver has a captive audience for the length of the trip. It works especially well at ACL, where the walk back from Zilker is long and everybody's feet hurt.
Do you only work in Austin?
Austin is home and it's where the fleet lives, but we've worked events outside the city too. If you're planning something elsewhere, ask — the answer depends on the dates and the scale.
Campaigns by event
Planning around a specific event?
Each of these has its own logic, its own routes and its own best format. We've written up what we'd actually recommend for the three biggest.
SXSW advertising
Ten days when downtown is closed to vehicles and we're not. Saturation campaigns, wrap lead times, and the routes that matter in March.
SXSW campaigns →
ACL advertising
Two October weekends and one very long walk out of Zilker. Why sponsored rides beat everything else at this festival.
ACL campaigns →
Mobile billboards
An honest comparison against static boards and wrapped trucks — including where they beat us — plus the districts worth a year-round fleet.
Mobile billboards →Get a quote
Tell us what you're planning.
The more you tell us, the more useful the answer. If a smaller buy at a different event would serve you better, we'll say so.
Let's talk about your campaign.
Send us the event, the dates and roughly what you're working with, and we'll tell you what we'd actually do with it.