Mobile marketer sees bright future

KEEPING IT MOVING: Brian and Jeanne Evans, owners of mobile-outdoor marketing company Promotion With Motion, show off their mobile screen. Building more trucks is the firm’s next move, they say. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
KEEPING IT MOVING: Brian and Jeanne Evans, owners of mobile-outdoor marketing company Promotion With Motion, show off their mobile screen. Building more trucks is the firm’s next move, they say. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

The business Jeanne and Brian Evans have been growing in Coventry since 2010 isn’t the one they set out to create.
Jeanne Evans originally thought she’d develop digital signs like those she noticed atop taxicabs in New York City, outfit them with marketer’s messages, set them atop VW Bugs and drive around college campuses.
“I pretty swiftly learned that in order to power something like that you would need to tap into the alternator and the only car that could handle something like that was the Crown Victoria that the police use,” she said. “That capsized that vision of what we wanted to do.”
In that false start, however, the Evanses found the roots of their mobile digital-marketing firm, Promotion With Motion.
The company’s first foray into marketing on wheels came in the form of a pair of high-definition digital displays strapped into the back of a Ford pickup truck and angled so they could be seen by pedestrians and drivers from all angles. An early break came when organizers of the Bristol Fourth of July parade asked the Evanses to drive in the event and display a video image of the new Bristol license plate.
“That kind of launched us,” said Brian Evans.
Business built from there, with the first major contract coming from the organizers of bridal expos, in Massachusetts, who had missed the deadline to buy billboard space and wanted to drive traffic to their two events. From there, Promotion with Motion helped promote the Pawtucket Red Sox and Pawsox-backer Cox Communications.
The firm’s newest vehicle – a box truck outfitted with a three-sided, 1 million LED display capable of full-color, high-definition video and audio displays – was finished earlier this year. Then business took a step toward national exposure when Chicago-based Networked Insights asked the Evanses to conduct a guerrilla-style campaign. Brian Evan positioned the vehicle outside Radio City Music Hall and other Manhattan locations, where advertising executives and business CEOs had gathered to be sold ad time by the major television networks.
“It was fun to be part of that and we learned how to get in, get seen and get out,” he said, adding that the vehicle’s hybrid LED technology enables images and videos to be clearly seen, even in direct sunlight. Back in the Ocean State, Promotion With Motion continues to grow its client roster, recently adding Classic Entertainment and Sports in North Providence, which will tap the vehicle to promote a series of boxing and mixed-martial arts events at Twin Rivers Casino.
Future events already booked include the Rally 4 Recovery in September and the Men’s Expo planned for this fall at the R.I. Convention Center.
“We know we need to build more trucks and that is the next step,” Jeanne Evans said. “Our clients can be anybody, any business with an event or product to promote.”
While the new vehicle came together with help from vendors across the country, Brian Evans said the company is working on partnerships to ensure that future vehicles can be manufactured and assembled in Rhode Island.
“We’re very much focused on building more right here in Rhode Island,” he said. “We see such a viable manufacturing outlet here in Rhode Island, one that can tap both skilled and unskilled labor. We have a path to intellectual property and we are focused on using it to be able to bring back certain aspects of an industry that has largely gone overseas. We can handle the technology aspects and now we are developing a path to be able to consolidate all the other work here in Rhode Island.”
The technology can also be applied to stationary signs and Promotion with Motion is in talks with sign makers about licensing and comanufacturing agreements.
Meanwhile, the company’s founders continue to see additional opportunities everywhere they go, as do the people who see their mobile signs in motion. “We’re finding that people are leading us to where we need to be,” Jeanne Evans said. “We have a wealth of people who, once they see what we can do, start to tell us, this would be great here or great there. “
Members of the millennial generation seem especially drawn to the vehicle’s high-resolution graphics and video. The truck casts a powerful glow when in use. Brian Evans notes that studies show that people feel safer and are more likely to congregate in brightly lit urban areas.
“I liken it to moths to a flame,” said Jeanne Evans. “Our intention is to light up Rhode Island and make people stop on route to Boston or New York.” •

COMPANY PROFILE
Promotion With Motion
OWNER: Brian and Jeanne Evans
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Mobile outdoor marketing
LOCATION: Coventry
EMPLOYEES: 5
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2010
ANNUAL SALES: WND

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