Runnings
Marshall, MN
DESIGNERS: Federal Cartridge, Anoka, MN, and Signature Graphics, Porter, IN
GRAPHICS SUPPLIER: Signature Graphics, Porter, IN
MARKING MATERIALS: 3M 180 Series
From humble beginnings in 1947, Runnings has grown into an operation with 31 retail stores throughout Minnesota, the Dakotas and Montana.
Selling farm and livestock equipment and supplies, hunting and fishing equipment, housewares, automotive goods, plumbing, electrical, clothing, footwear, hardware, lawn and garden supplies, paint, pet supplies, sporting goods, and tools, it takes a fleet of 10 tractors and 30 trailers to keep those stores stocked. To help support the retail mission, the company’s private fleet becomes an integral part of the operation. Runnings markets its product lines in all the traditional medium, but Dennis Jensen, marketing and advertising manager, realizes that those trailers hauling the goods can also be effective advertising.
Runnings took both a traditional and non-traditional approach to its trailer graphics. Working with Signature Graphics, the company outfitted two trailers to showcase product lines. One includes a DeWalt power tool graphic in yellow against a black background. The other, an image of hunters in the field using Browning shotguns. Both trailers include the product names and the Runnings name prominently displayed at the rear of the trailer.
But Runnings went a step further, working with supplier Federal Cartridge Co. through a co-op advertising program to highlight that company’s Federal Premium ammunition on five trailers. Those trailers include images of deer and birds near a lake, just waiting to be hunted.
“With 31 stores across four states, the trailers travel an average of 75,000 mi. (per year),” Jensen points out. “These mobile billboards attract millions of impressions and create new business.”
