Personalised Number Plates – Building Your Business Branding

Personalised number plates are just for fun, right? No longer true! Savvy business People have been using personalised number plates for their business branding for Years, but it is only now really taking off as a recognised strategy.

Businesses that run a fleet of service vehicles will generally use the sides and backs of vans and trucks for business branding. But what about the cars driven by company directors and salesmen? These are often anonymous. With personalised number plates, your company cars can also subtly enhance your business branding. Even better, the plates can easily be transferred every time the car is replaced, unlike the paint jobs on vans and trucks.

Licence plates are very visible. People tend to notice them, not just when they are stuck in traffic, but also in passing. While it is harder to take in and remember a string of numbers, a personalised number plate with a recognisable word will be instantly noted and remembered. If it is something snappy and fun it will also bring a smile to the face and promote a positive image for your company.

Finding the right word or letters for your business plates should have as much thought given to it as any other marketing strategy. Companies with a serious image might prefer just to use the company initials, or the whole name if it is short, followed by sequential numbers for each vehicle of the fleet, to enhance their brand and name recognition. Businesses that prefer a light-hearted feel to their image can go all out with their creativity and look for a snappy short word that relates to their business with humour. The best known example of these in the UKrnare a London plumbing business that got itself a huge amount of free publicity with its humorous plate BOG 1 and LAV 1.

Countries where longer sequences of letters are allowed without numbers have an advantage here. Whilst UK plates are restricted to no more than three letters in a row and must include numbers, South Africa for example, allows up to seven letters. UK number plates get round the restrictions by using numbers to stand in for letters and ingenious combinations can create whole longer words. However there is a freedom to personalised number plates in South Africa. A dentist could decide on FLOSS or BRUSH or SMILE, without having to worry about finding numbers to substitute for letters.

Once your business has its own set of personalised number plates, it is up to you to decide how their branding potential can be maximised. Of course just by driving around on everyday normal business automatically brings visibility and recognition, the more people notice the plates. You can however kick-start the process by arranging a photo opportunity and interview with a local paper or even a national one for a bigger business, making sure that the car and number plates are featured in the photo. If your plates are funny or quirky or interesting enough, that could be enough for a story in itself , on a quiet news day.