Rewarding Rides - product sampling in London’s black cabs.

One of the universally acknowledged truths about taxi advertising is that the internal advertising is a pretty valuable opportunity to target an upmarket, cosmopolitan audience. In recent times we have had a number of clients take this up a notch or two, by adding product sampling to their taxi campaign. Last year Coca-Cola set a new benchmark with weekly sampling of perfectly chilled cans of Coke, handed out to passengers each Wednesday, by the Coke taxi drivers. This activity, part of their #ChooseHappiness campaign, generated heaps of goodwill and saw happy recipients take to social media to express their surprise and delight. The social media brand love for such unexpected treats is invaluable. We currently have two very different product sampling initiatives running as part of London SuperSide taxi campaigns; one for Mentos (yes, the very same treats from your childhood) and the other for Trilogy Natural Skincare. Both are looking to engage a cosmopolitan audience and both are using a social media photo campaign to encourage online engagement, complete with hashtag of course! The Mentos taxi drivers have been asked to give passengers a Mentos Choco Roll as they jump in the taxi, and have been briefed to tell people about the social media campaign – take a selfie of you and your Mentos during the ride and post with #MentosLondon to win a prize. Additionally, each driver has a cheat-sheet of Mentos FAQs, such as a product description, available flavours, retail price and where to buy the product. There are 100 Mentos taxis in London right now, and with around 26 passengers a day, we expect a lot of people to be receiving the Mentos experience! What a great way to create brand positivity whilst physically placing the product in the hand of the target audience. The Trilogy campaign is a little different. The product is high-value skincare and is rather beautifully presented in a gift box and cloth pouch. Each box contains a selection of miniature ‘handbag heroes’ products, so is directly aimed cosmopolitan women. Once again, the drivers have been briefed to ensure that the gift is handed to target ladies who tip the driver – a special ‘thanks for the tip’ gift from Trilogy. What a lovely touch. I have no doubt that Trilogy recipients will be delighted to receive such a desirable freebie and will likely be surprised to discover that their driver is ‘in the know’ about Trilogy, especially the ‘hero’ Rosehip Oli that is the sought-after product of the moment! Drivers are also briefed to mention the special offer on the taxi receipt, for ladies who wish to purchase more online. For those who miss out on a taxi ride, they simply need to Tweet a Trilogy cab photo to win a bottle of Rosehip Oil. This activity is trying hard to get under the skin (no pun intended) of this hard-to-reach audience of time-poor cosmopolitan females and what better way to do this than to enrich a taxi experience with something that is high-value, relevant and importantly, personally gifted. Here at Ubiquitous we have a dedicated PR & Events team who advise clients about the best way to execute sampling activity; they also take on the role of ensuring that drivers are properly brand-briefed too. We’ve executed sampling for a wide range of clients, from Hershey’s and Coca-Cola to Karl Lagerfeld and Drambuie; if you want to know more, talk to the team.