Carvertise rolls out ‘targeted driving’ feature

Targeted advertising, usually associated with digital marketing, has come to moving billboards: Wilmington-based Carvertise has recently launched a new product feature called Targeted Driving.

“This product feature enables clients to put hundreds of hours behind driving and parking at specific events, locations and conferences,” said Greg Star, operating partner with Carvertise, in an email. “It has quickly become a huge hit with our pre-existing clients.”

Basically, the client provides the driver pool, who drive in a designated area — a contrast to its regular system that doesn’t designate where drivers take their cars. Star offers an example of the new feature with one of its newer clients, Anne Arundel Community College, one of the largest community colleges in Maryland.

“Through a clever iteration off our core product, we are using the school’s students themselves to be drivers of the wrapped cars,” he said. “In addition to the moving billboard, the schools are getting brand ambassadors behind the steering wheels while also recycling thousands of ad dollars back into the pockets of their students. This has become a no-brainer.”

Carvertise was born out of the University of Delaware’s Horn Entrepreneurship program, originally founded as Penguin Ads in 2012. Over the last seven years, it’s grown exponentially, now a national company serving more than 30 markets and one of the most successful startups to come out of Delaware.

A year ago, the company moved from the incubation space 1313 Innovation location to its own all-in-one Riverfront location in Browntown.