Over the past five years, Desley Kuiper and Trayler have built a solid company that links transport companies to advertisers. The concept: using trucks as driving advertising pillars. Now, helped by GroBusiness, he wants to conquer Europe.
Trayler has not been unknown in the Netherlands for a long time. The marketing agency is also gaining a foothold in Belgium. At the same time, requests are coming in from Germany and the company is looking at opportunities for using trucks as so-called moving billboards on the French market.
CEO and owner Desley Kuiper sits relaxed at a conference table in the office on Oude Boteringestraat, in downtown Groningen. His international ambitions are taking shape. With a distinctive concept, that's for sure. Trayler helps clients increase their visibility and brand awareness through advertising on trucks. Complete trailers are used as a marketing tool. So both the back and the sides.
Scaling up
"We want to conquer all of Europe from Groningen," says Desley with determination. Everywhere there are trucks there are opportunities. So we can still scale considerably.' In essence, the idea is quite simple. Through Trayler, companies and brands can advertise on transport companies' trailers. Transporters make trailer space available and advertisers pay to be visible on the moving advertising columns every day.
Trayler takes all the work off your hands. From design to delivery and from strategy to activation around moving billboards: everything is taken care of. For transport companies it means a welcome extra source of income, especially in times when margins are tight and fuel costs are rising. Advertisers benefit from a powerful marketing tool that literally gets their brand moving. The reach is enormous, with often as many as millions of impressions per year.
Beautiful opportunity
Trayler's story began on the soccer field. There Desley struck up a conversation with Henk Jan Bijmolt, owner of online timber merchant Gadero. Henk Jan had found a transport company willing to put the Gadero name on a truck. It caught on. So much so that entrepreneurs regularly asked him how he had arranged it. This reinforced his conviction that advertising does not have to be static. Perhaps he could do more with that.
"A friend of mine worked at Gadero and had said to Henk Jan: if you ever need someone who can sell well, you need Desley," Desley laughs. 'Shortly after talking to Henk Jan, I quit my job as an intermediary at a temp agency and we started Trayler together in September 2019. I saw it as a great opportunity and felt I had nothing to lose. About a year and a half later, Henk Jan chose to leave Trayler and I was ultimately responsible for the company.'
Do not whine
Before he started Trayler, Desley had no ambition to become an entrepreneur. He was more someone who preferred to just let things happen to him. In the family he grew up in, entrepreneurship was never a topic of conversation. What he did learn was to work hard, not whine and persevere. Qualities that came in handy when setting up and expanding Trayler. He learned the rest by doing and finding things out for himself.
He did a lot of self-study and studied marketing in depth. What exactly do I sell and what does the Out of Home market look like? But he also started working on himself. By exercising daily, for example, and taking cold showers. 'As an entrepreneur, you have to teach yourself a bit of discipline,' says Desley. 'Then you soon notice that you become more productive and energetic and stay mentally sharp.'
Proud people
The first period he worked very pragmatically. Cold calling and arousing interest among transport companies. As soon as he got a positive response, he tried to find possible advertisers via LinkedIn.
"That wasn't easy, to say the least," Desley reflects. 'Transport entrepreneurs are proud people who don't just make space available on a trailer. Let alone take their own name off it. For advertisers, the difficulty of measuring effectiveness was often an objection. They therefore often opted for better-known options such as billboards and bus shelters.'
The early years were tough and corona didn't help either. Still, Desley managed to win over more and more parties to the concept, including names such as EasyToys, XXL Nutrition and presenter and culinary expert Miljuschka Witzenhausen. What especially convinced them was the combination of physical visibility and online activation. Indeed, the moving billboards are explicitly positioned as part of the total marketing mix, for example in combination with online campaigns and activations.
Logical step
Now, more than five years later, there are about a hundred trucks driving mainly through the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. The Trayler team now consists of five employees and sales are approaching one million. With this growth came the next challenge: how do you accelerate growth in the rest of Europe? 'International entrepreneurship sounds super fun, of course,' says Desley. Everyone you tell about it says: oh, how cool! But if you dig a little deeper into it, you soon find out that it is not easy. Where do you start, for example?'
That question brought Desley to GroBusiness, the regional platform for Groningen entrepreneurs. He had once gotten to know the organization at a NOM event and knew that they also support organizations in realizing their international ambitions. At the time, Desley had not yet considered it, but now growing internationally was a logical next step. And so he sought contact with Han Smidt, at GroBusiness active as theme specialist internationalization.
Accessible
Han turned out to be an expert who immediately offered Desley concrete tools. 'He always remains calm, has a wealth of international entrepreneurial experience and has a large network,' Desley knows. 'He knows exactly what you are up against in this phase. He told me about subsidy possibilities for market research, for example. He also put me in touch with the Hanzehogeschool, where international students can support Trayler with applications from their home countries. '
Han also advised to bring more focus to the international strategy. "He mentioned Germany in particular as a promising market for a company like Trayler," says Desley. 'The market there is somewhat more traditional than elsewhere in Western Europe and, above all, the transport sector there is huge. The cooperation just runs smoothly and naturally. Han e-mails or calls from time to time to check how things are going and whether there is anything else he can do for us. It is all very approachable, which allows you to take steps faster.'
Trailermade
Meanwhile, Trayler is working on a second pillar: Trailermade. An upcycling initiative that shows that the company has an eye for sustainability . Truck tarpaulins that have been driven around Europe for years are given a second life via Trailermade as laptop bags, shopper or other special products. 'CO2 compensation often remains abstract,' Desley explains. 'With a laptop bag made from old tarpaulin, it becomes tangible. Trailermade's webshop will be launched soon.'
The ambitions are clear. To grow further, nationally and internationally, with Trayler and to take social responsibility with Trailermade. Desley looks ahead with confidence. 'Trucks will remain dominant on European roads in the coming years,' he says. 'And physical visibility, in my opinion, will only become more important for companies and brands. Our concept will therefore only become more relevant. Moreover, it is easily scalable. I think it would be great to eventually open an office abroad. Why not? The potential is big enough.'
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