Your ad here: what fifty pedicabs can actually do
We can run a campaign across fifty pedicabs. That's the headline, and it's true. The more useful question is when you'd actually want to — because for a lot of brands the right answer is a smaller fleet at a better-chosen event.
Reach versus frequency
Most out-of-home is sold on reach — how many people theoretically pass the board. Pedicabs are better understood as a frequency medium. The fleet circulates a fairly small area containing a fairly fixed crowd, which means the same people see it again and again across a night or a weekend.
That's why fleet size matters more than it looks. Three cabs in a crowd of eighty thousand is a rounding error. Thirty is a presence. The jump between those isn't linear — somewhere in the middle the campaign stops being something people notice and starts being something they mention.
How to size it
Roughly how we think about it, and you can apply this without hiring anyone:
- Small district, long run. A handful of cabs working Rainey or East Sixth every weekend for a month will out-perform the same money dumped into one festival — if your product is something people buy locally and repeatedly.
- Big event, short burst. If the audience is only in town for one weekend, go as wide as the budget allows. Half-measures at SXSW disappear.
- One strange cab. Sometimes the right answer is a single custom-built carriage that people photograph, parked somewhere like South Congress. Different campaign, different metric, and it can beat a fleet on cost per share.
Panels or wraps
Panels are cheaper and faster to produce, so you can put them on more bikes for the same money. Wraps cost more per cab but turn the whole vehicle into the ad and photograph far better. If the goal is frequency, panels across a wider fleet usually wins. If the goal is images people share, wrap fewer cabs and make them count.
The full breakdown of formats is on the advertising page, including branded riders and the custom carriage builds — which are the format genuinely nobody else in Austin offers.
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