You may soon see a semi trailer featuring pictures of Charles City traveling across the state as part of a cooperative program between the state’s liquor and tourism departments.
Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division spokesperson, Tonya Dusold, says it’s something they’ve been doing for over 10 years.
She says the division donates space on their trucks to honor the communities that were named “Iowa Great Places.” There were initially three trucks, and now there are 11 cities featured on the trucks that deliver alcohol across the state.
A trailer featuring Davenport rolled out this spring. The cities design the advertising that wraps around the truck and feature attractions in the cities. For instance, some of the features on the Charles City truck are the city’s new whitewater park and the Floyd County Museum.
Dusold says the great part about each city designing its own trailer is that the design is done by someone who lives and works in the community and they pick out some of the individual features of the community. A.B.D. pays the cost of applying the wrap to the truck, about three-thousand dollars, and the community gets the benefit the traveling mobile billboard.
Dusold says they estimate the size and amount of advertising space and the miles traveled has a value of about $60,000 per trailer per year. She says the advertising wraps last about seven years and total value of the program is about $6.7- million.
Dusold says they usually start the trucks on a route near the community they feature to let the local folks see the truck. They then send the trucks on other routes so the community message gets spread across the state.
Dusold says the idea is to generate tourism and bring people to the communities, so if the trailer feature Davenport, then they would send it to western Iowa to get Davenport exposure in that part of the state. Appanoose County, Council Bluffs, Decorah, Perry and Valley Junction are all scheduled to have images featured on A.B.D. trucks later this year.
Photos courtesy of the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division.
Charles City trailer side view.