‘I make $500 a month just by dropping my kids at school’

The rubberneckers are out in force when Sydney father of three Sylvester Arraiza drops his kids off at school each day.

And it’s not just because he’s behind the wheel of a sleek, silent Polestar 2 electric vehicle, either.

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Heads turn because his entire car is wrapped in a campaign for Lego, and the kids at school stop and stare in awe.

Mr Arraiza also drives for Uber and DoorDash and covers plenty of ground as a marriage celebrant, making him the perfect mobile billboard for the globally recognised brand.

He’s had the car wrapped in the Lego campaign for four months, making him $500 monthly. He’s also earned some extra cash for posing in a few photoshoots for the brand.

He says he uses the money he makes from the car ad to help pay for his kids' extracurricular activities.

“The fact that I’ve got kids means I’m always dropping them off and picking them up from school or dropping them off at gymnastics or ballet,” he says.

“The kids love the car so much more now, and love seeing their friends’ reactions when I drop them off."

Mr Arraiza initially spotted an ad on social media promoting outdoor advertising company Wrappr.

Wrappr was looking for parents with primary school-aged kids who do the school pick-up and drop-off, and who drive at least 150km a week in the Greater Sydney area.

Mr Arraiza simply filled out some forms detailing his regular routes around Sydney and then he was approved.

Wrappr covers the cost of applying – and removing – the wrap. Mr Arraiza's daily commutes are also recorded in a GPS tracker by Wrappr as part of the campaign.

Wrappr only wraps people’s vehicles if they are the original owners or are confident in their vehicle history because touch-up paint could peel. And they generally only accept new models.

If you want to sell your car, Wrappr just needs a month's notice to be able to remove the ad.

Wrappr pays drivers between $200 and $600 a month to simply drive their normal route. The bigger the wrap on your car, the more money you’ll earn, co-CEO Liam Shaw says.

Ads On Wheels offers a similar car-wrapping ad service, and says 20,000 drivers in its network have earned more than $300,000 combined since 2017 for driving 14 million paid kilometres.

The company wraps the car for you and pays between $200 and $2100 per campaign. Recent campaigns have been for Planet Fitness, Nissan, the Road Safety Commission, some real estate firms and a flooring company.

While you can of course refuse to be part of a campaign, you don’t get to pick and choose specific brand's campaigns. Instead, the advertisers select you based on the route you drive.

“It’s up to us to pick the best drivers for the campaigns we have running," Mr Shaw explains.

"This is a big part of the process, and we try to match people very accurately to the brand they’re going to be representing, which includes selecting the right vehicle, having the right interests, being a fan of the brand, and spending a decent amount of time driving in the right areas."

Some campaigns want to be represented by luxury cars driving in wealthy suburbs, while others are looking for family vehicles targeting regional areas or cityscapes. Newer cars tend to be most in demand, he says.

“Each campaign has different driving requirements that need to be hit each month in order to receive full payment, but we will never accept anyone into the campaign who won’t hit these requirements by driving their normal routine.

“For example, we might ask that someone spend 70 per cent of their time in the Eastern Beaches of Sydney and drives 150km per week, or we might ask that they drive 500km per week within metro Melbourne. The important thing is that whoever gets accepted into the campaign will be driving these kilometres anyway so it's no extra effort for them,” Mr Shaw explains.

“You’ll have an app installed on your phone that tells us how much and where they are driving, and it also measures how safe they are driving. We have a safe driving threshold they must maintain to be part of a campaign,” he says.

Mr Arraiza is more than happy to make his car available for another campaign: “We’ll be sad to see the Lego wrap go, but we knew it wouldn’t last forever.”