Leading global banking, payments, and shopping service Klarna returned to taxi advertising this spring as part of a wider strategy of OOH, online, social media and print activity, to create broadcast-level noise for their #WhyPayInterest campaign; planned and booked by Bountiful Cow and Kinetic.

Klarna is no stranger to taxi advertising, having used the opportunity numerous times to generate broadcast-level brand awareness to a retail street audience; but on this occasion the brand harnessed the potential of taxis to create heightened message awareness during key moments.

“Klarna branded taxis have played an important role in the ‘Why Pay Interest?’ campaign,” Klarna Marketing Manager Mark Godfrey explains. “From delivering three separate messages at once, to targeting key locations and landmarks, as well as featuring heavily in our PR releases and activity.”

First let’s take a look at the messages - the alternating creatives included surprising financial statistics highlighting the benefits of using Klarna over the traditional credit card model. For example, in 2020 alone, Brits lost over £5.7 billion to credit card interest – that’s £144 every 60 seconds. Meanwhile, those that used zero-cost buy now pay later options saved £76 million in interest payments. Thought-provoking stuff and actually quite an unusual execution for taxi advertising – we don’t usually see copy-led creative on taxis, as many brands feel the opportunity doesn’t lend itself.

Of course, we beg to differ there – the high frequency offered by taxi advertising makes it the perfect roadside communication platform for multiple messages. A campaign such as Klarna’s, with 400 taxis, will be seen on average twice a week by Londoners; in fact for those in the city centre where taxis spend most of their time, real-life campaign visibility will be a lot higher.

Godfrey continues, “As Britain starts opening up again, we wanted a presence on the street and taxis represent one of the safest ways of getting moving again, helping us see our loved ones and taking us to venues and events around the capital once more.”

This powerful campaign, which will reach 7/10 Londoners, comes at a time when there is growing pressure from the Government for regulation of the UK’s booming buy now pay later industry; #WhyPayInterest shines a spotlight on challenging what CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski suggests is an outdated business model. It’s important for online shoppers be aware that Klarna is on the front-foot in this debate, so to create targeted message amplification, Klarna asked the PR Events team at Ubiquitous to arrange a number of bespoke taxi activities.

Convoys of branded taxis are highly effective at turning heads - to draw the attention of pedestrians in Piccadilly, three Klarna taxis continually circled Piccadilly Lights, on which Klarna’s campaign was also featured. A similar tactic was employed to heighten awareness of the Klarna projection on London’s iconic County Hall.

In addition to convoys, Klarna users were offered free taxi rides from Shoreditch’s Ebor Street, where a branded Klarna ice cream truck was set up in front of an interactive mural – what a great way to create an on-street impact for this important message, and combine it with bags of feel-good factor.

High-five Klarna! This taxi campaign is a shining example of how to deliver a broadcast-level OOH reach and frequency that also has a real-life, street-level impact, exactly where and when you want it.

With the current Government guidelines declaring that everyone using public transport should observe safe distancing during Covid-19 and ensure that they travel as safely as possible, London Taxi PR (LTPR), which represents the interests of the Licensed London Taxi profession has, in just 48 hours, pulled together a new ‘Safe Passenger Travel’ awareness campaign, which is now live on London's black taxis.

The Taxi campaign promotes two key safety aspects of travelling in a London Taxi: the safe partitioning of the driver and passenger compartments by a partition, which has been a feature throughout London Taxi history, and the sanitising of interiors, which is being undertaken by cabbies between passenger journeys. In addition, it is worth noting that every London Taxi provides access for wheelchairs, supporting those in our communities who may be more vulnerable than others, and offers contactless payment, so no need to handle cash.

Since being kick-started by a significant donation of taxi advertising space by Colts Cabs, one of the Capital's leading black taxi rental companies, many stakeholders in the black taxi profession have donated money and/or ad space to help the campaign gain widespread presence and awareness; Ubiquitous is pleased to be playing a part in this too.

When asked about the campaign, Andrew Barnett, CEO at Ubiquitous said, “We fully support this initiative and we’re happy to be covering the printing costs to get even more taxis featuring this campaign on the road. In black taxis, London has the most trusted cab service in the world, and it’s no surprise to me that cabbies are going the extra mile to make sure that passengers are safe during Covid-19; it’s great to see that being promoted.”

Beyond London, drivers of the iconic Hackney Carriage black taxi up and down the country have expressed an interest in the campaign, so the ambition is to work alongside London Taxi PR to use this advert across the UK to promote the safety benefits that black taxis provide in the era of Covid-19, and beyond.

The campaign emphasises the safety and trusted reputation of the licensed Hackney Carriage service, which has particular value at this time, when people are more likely to be anxious about using public transportation to travel for work, business or for medical reasons, at all times of the day and night.

For further information about London Taxi PR and their campaigns, visit their website or email [email protected]

There are very few OOH opportunities that can deliver the combination of high city-centre audience reach and iconic brand placement, in the way that taxi advertising does; these are the predominant reasons why brands put taxis on their media schedule.

However, since the arrival of the hybrid TXe black taxi in London, we have seen a number of brands choose taxi advertising because the channel now offers a ‘green’ solution, and for many brands this is either already extremely important, or is growing more so.

The advent of the TXe cab represented a watershed moment for Londoners; black taxis account for 20% of the NOx emissions in London – there is no doubt that having more TXes on the road (and fewer diesel cabs) will improve the quality of the air we breathe. Historically our campaigns have been on diesel taxis, but this has rapidly changed - hundreds of TXe drivers have already joined our media fleet. Ubiquitous sees this vehicle as the future of taxi advertising and we’re significantly invested in maintaining and building on the number of electric cabs that are available for brands.

Now that we are talking about taxis that are better for the environment, why not broaden our ambitions? What else we could be doing to turn the iconic black cab green?

Towards the end of last year, our Ops team started testing biodegradable vinyl, to assess its suitability for the exterior of hard-working, rain-or-shine, black cabs. This is important because currently, the type of vinyl used by taxi campaigns goes into a landfill - nobody at Ubiquitous is happy with this, and no matter how good the UK and EU regulations are, a sticky fact remains: plastic takes centuries to degrade. So, while we wait for a suitable biodegradable option to be available, the Ops team set about finding an alternative solution to landfill.

After conversations with the local authority that collects waste for Ubiquitous, they discovered that the council simply contracts-out the waste management to a third party, but under that agreement, just a limited number of waste solutions are available – only landfill for vinyl. So, they took it up a notch and spoke directly to Veolia (the contracted provider) and guess what? They do offer a better solution for vinyl disposal: ‘waste-to-energy’ incineration. So, we quickly struck a direct deal with Veolia and committed to this greener strategy.

What is ‘waste-to-energy’ incineration? Simply put, it’s a high temperature burn of vinyl products that results in a zero-emission, zero-landfill output; the energy is cycled into power for the local community and the waste ash is recycled as road surface aggregate. The waste-to-energy option solved the landfill issue immediately and is a commitment by us that puts a tick in the ‘green’ column for black taxi advertising.

To double down on that tick, we also needed to address the issue of diesel emissions from the classic TX taxis in our fleet. Carbon emission is a big topic – the Mayor and TfL have aggressive targets to improve air quality and would like all public transport to be ‘zero emission’ (as would other councils across the UK). But for black taxis, many of which are privately owned, this is a slow evolution, even despite the attractive financial incentives put in place for cabbies to decommission their diesel cabs and switch to the TXe.

So, in the meantime, what solution can Ubiquitous offer to brands, to balance the environmental impact of their classic black taxi campaign? Create an offsetting programme.

This turned out to be a quick and easy win - for as little as £1,000 brands can off-set the diesel emissions from a 4-week, 400-taxi advertising campaign; that’s a small price to pay and can be rolled into an existing programme or can be invested by Ubiquitous on behalf of the brand; it can even be promoted on the campaign itself.

So, there we have it – three ways in which we have made it possible for brands to ensure their taxi advertising investment complements their CSR commitments: TXe taxis, zero landfill (as standard on all campaigns) and carbon off-setting.

We’re proud to have achieved our goal, and in doing so, to have created a new OOH opportunity: Iconic black taxi advertising - now available in green.

Chantecaille’s beautiful Rose de Mai taxis truly blossomed outside their London Press launch at the prestigious Arts Club in Mayfair.

The exclusive beauty event exhibited their up and coming AW17 product range to high profile journalists and key industry influencers. During the event, the striking rose designed taxis showcased outside of the venue ready for their photoshoot with the Chantecaille team including the Founder’s daughter, Alex Chantecaille, Vice President of Sales and Promotions.

Staying true to the brand’s preeminent quality, Chantecaille ensured that their valued guests continued to be appreciated after the event by providing them with their very own Chantecaille taxi to chauffeur them to their workplace.

Anna Shearer, Chantecaille’s Marketing Assistant commented that “the event was a huge success and the journalists loved the taxis as did Alex Chantecaille!”

Concur, the leader in employee spend management, recently launched a year-long multi-channel campaign targeting UK businesses named “Conscious Interaction.” The activity has been created and delivered by Maxus For Business, the specialist B2B division of Maxus UK.

The multi-pronged activity leverages the personal nature of event marketing across radio, digital/mobile display, digital audio, OOH and social. The campaign is highly targeted, executing around key business districts, environments and events. A vital part of the activity involves Concur’s fleet of branded London taxis offering free journeys between eight and nine AM, or to and from key events.

When no events are taking place, the taxis will start the free passenger hour from strategically important business locations such as Canary Wharf and Old Street.

On-board, Meshh technology is being used to deliver free WiFi, with a branded landing page within the taxis – a media first, not only for a B2B client.

Jenny Thornton, Director of Field Marketing at Concur, said: “Our target audience of SME decision-makers are incredibly busy and always on the go, thinking about how to save the business money and prepare for growth. This campaign shows how Concur makes life easier by removing process headaches for them as well as their business travellers.”

Commenting on the Concur campaign, Sarah Priseman, Director of Marketing & Planning at Ubiquitous said, ‘This is not the first time that we have showcased Concur on our taxis, so not only are we really pleased to have them back, we are delighted that the brand has embraced the hyper-local content opportunity. This campaign is a world-first – it’s the first deployment of Meshh technology in vehicles, and it’s also the first time a brand has used the full capabilities of technology to provide hyper-local video content combined with free Wi-Fi to taxi passengers.’