Mortgage program raises profile with rolling ads
Car wraps promote Md. Mortgage Program for first time homebuyers
Southern Maryland drivers may see a moving advertising campaign for a state program roll on by them in the next few months as they’re driving down the road or inching through traffic.
The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development has teamed up with Carvertise, a Wilmington, Del., media company, to wrap 24 cars in Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties with an advertisement for the department’s Maryland Mortgage Program. The cars, which are expected to wrack up 72,000 miles in three months, are privately owned by residents who will earn $350 to get out the state’s message. They hit the roads April 1 and are required to keep rolling through June.
“What’s good about this program is it’s putting money back in the community,” Lisa L. Flowers, owner of Flowers Media Matters in Milford, Del., said in a telephone interview. “It’s local drivers. These aren’t people from the Maryland Mortgage Program, these are local drivers.” Carvertise is one of Flowers’s public relations clients.
The housing department’s mobile advertising campaign, which is currently only being run in the three Southern Maryland counties, is expected to raise the profile of the mortgage program and entice first time homebuyers to look into the programs offered by the department that can help them purchase their first home.
The Maryland Mortgage Program is a home loan program that provides a safe and secure loans from Maryland’s Housing Finance Agency, according to the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development website. The loans are typically 30-year fixed rate with interests rates competitive with commercial lenders, the website states. “Potential borrowers with liquid assets equal to 20 percent or more of the sales price may not be eligible for the program,” the website says. Eligible borrowers also need to have a minimum credit score between 640 and 700, depending on the loan type.
Along with the different loan products and education, the mortgage program also offers down payment and closing cost assistance in the form of no-interest, deferred loans — up to $5,000 — as well as loan match assistance, according to the state website.
The housing department didn’t have anyone available for comment this week to say exactly why it chose the car wrap method to get the word out in Southern Maryland, but Flowers said it was just another way to attract eyeballs to a message.
“It’s really a media platform; it’s a moving billboard,” Flowers said. “It’s used to raise awareness of the brand.”
Both Flowers and Carvertise co-founder Greg Star also said it adds another dimension to the advertising dollar: It puts some of it back in the hands of taxpayers.
“This allows the client, in this case, Mar yland Mortgage Program, to invest money back into the community,” Star said in a press release. “It’s an ideal partnership for local organizations, such as governments, to show their audiences their programs and provide jobs in the local community.”
Flowers said Carvertise has done campaigns like this on both the state and national level with governments, universities and private businesses such as restaurant chain Buffalo Wild Wings and online retailer Amazon.
The state of Delaware did a car wrap advertising program last year in conjunction with NASCAR on driver safety.
“Every campaign is different. When we did a campaign in Delaware we had 20 cars over a five month period,” Flowers said. That campaign was “Protect Your Melon” (buckle up) and “Use Your Melon” (drive sober), and the cars were wrapped in a watermelon theme.
The Southern Maryland campaign car wraps include a house-shaped state flag logo and ask: “Ready to own your first home?” The wrap also includes the mortgage program website (mmp.Maryland.gov/own) and a phone number (800638-7781).
Given the admonitions of late about distracted driving coming from state and local officials, those last bits of information are probably best read and written down at a stoplight or at the grocer y store parking lot.