Romanians flocked over the summer to offer their cars as support for advertising and get money in return. Carmedia, a company which offers car advertising services, has reached a database of 1,000 active cars from Bucharest, five times more than it had at the beginning of the summer, when it started to operate, Maxime Porte, managing director of Carmedia told romania-insider.com. Drivers can get more than RON 400 a month, as well as a free weekly car wash for allowing companies to place campaign stickers on their cars.

Carmedia plans to double the number of cars – and drivers – in its database by the end of the year.

The company already has six car branding campaigns running in Bucharest and is close to signing contracts with taxi companies to offer advertising on taxis as well. “In around a month we will also offer advertising on taxis,” says Maxime Porte.

The price of car advertising services go from EUR 50 for covering a car (such as a company car) and from EUR 220/a car/a month for the car advertising service, which implies the use of a third party car chosen from the company's database. Advertising on taxis will cost from EUR 50/a car/month.

The services included in the costs are the optimization of graphical design, printing the stickers, applying and removing them, and in the case of using third party cars, a weekly car wash.

The car advertising business is not a first in Romania, but previous business models differed. In the past, companies were paying drivers based on one or two-year contracts and eventually couldn't keep up with the costs. They were paying for the advertising space and then they had to convince clients, Maxime Porte explains. The business model he uses is to pay the selected third party car owners in its database whenever there is an advertising campaign running.

Corina Saceanu (corina@romania-insider.com)