property advertising

In recent years we have seen taxi advertising rise in popularity as a format via which property and real estate businesses choose to reach a city centre audience in the mind-set to buy or sell a property. Taxis are a unique outdoor advertising format; always on the move, reaching new people every day in busy city centres as well as in residential streets where there is simply no other outdoor media.

Their ubiquity within busy cities delivers broad audience reach amongst the most economically active people. Ubiquitous is the only taxi advertising company that operates across 26 UK cities, however we understand that every city is different, and although populations vary, advertising on black taxis still delivers excellent reach of those who tend to be the chief income earner. Using taxi advertising to place your brand in front of this audience creates awareness amongst a time-poor, upwardly mobile audience on the move.

Taxi advertising in London has the potential to reach 85% of ABC1 adults every two weeks, which delivers great potential for brands. Those who see taxi advertising in London are 52% more likely than the average person to buy or sell a property in the next year; they are 61% more likely to use their mobile phone to look up property information. To reach people who are frequently outside and on the move, what better advertising opportunity than black taxis?

International Estate and Letting agents Winkworth have teamed up with Ubiquitous to create a number of eye-catching taxi campaigns in London. A well-known brand already, Winkworth use taxi advertising to maintain brand presence across the city centre, to ensure that their brand is front of mind when potential customers are thinking about property decisions, whether they are buying, selling, renting or investing. Inside their taxis, the internal tip-seat posters communicated a deeper message with passengers throughout the journey, prompting visits to the brand’s website via mobile QR codes.

The picture is similar across the UK’s major cities – taxi advertising continues to reach those people who are most economically active. By infiltrating city centre streets, taxi advertising not only reaches those who live in our major conurbations, but also ensures that a brand’s message reaches the many thousands, if not millions of people who visit those cities each month, from neighbouring cities and the rest of the UK. Different opportunities exist outside London, for example, those who live or work in Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow or Birmingham (and see taxi advertising) are three times more likely than the GB average to have paid off their mortgage and are 60% more likely to look for profitable ways to invest – great potential here for property businesses, as taxi advertising reaches this audience with ease. The taxi audience in these cities is also twice as likely to move in with a partner, within the next year.  

Specialist property investment consultancy Knight Knox, created a campaign which ran across two major UK cities and called for UK investors to buy property in Manchester. They used a great creative and compelling copy to inform their target audience that Manchester is ‘the UK’s buy-to-let hotspot’. Inside the taxis, tip-seats provided further detail about investing in Manchester property, along with NFC stickers that directed passengers to access the Knight Knox website via their smartphone. This campaign effectively enabled Knight Knox to reach their target audience and build their brand in these two key cities.

Our property clients look to taxi advertising to help them achieve a variety of communication objectives - to promote a new development or investment opportunity, to simply build brand awareness and maintain market presence, or to launch a new brand proposition. Whether you book SuperSide or Livery taxis across the short or long term, taxi advertising continually places your brand in the environment where your target audience works, socialises and shops.

Sources: TGI 2017 Q1,  ROUTE 21.01

Taxi advertising is proving an increasingly popular way for property agents and developers to keep their brand awareness high and their message prominent amongst an urban audience of buyers and sellers. In fact, people who regularly see taxi advertising are 47% more likely than the average person to expect to buy or sell in the next 12 months; they’re also 80% more likely to expect to buy their first home this year. Despite recent dips at the top end of the market, London’s housing scene is robust, being the biggest in Europe and attracting £35bn in capital in the last quarter of 2015 alone. Excluding the top-end price drop (thanks to higher stamp duty), London prices actually rose by 11% year-on-year. According to the Land Registry the average London home now costs £476,000; this will likely only continue to rise with more than 54,000 new homes planned, or being built in prime areas, many of them priced at more than £1m. Prices might be high but there is still growth to be had, especially in some of the cheaper boroughs such as Newham, which saw a 23% growth in 2015. Being the front-of-mind property agent or developer in this climate is of huge importance; the market moves quickly so keeping potential buyers and sellers informed about your services and properties is key to success. We have seen a host of residential agencies use taxi advertising in the last 18 months, as well as developers looking to rapidly sell new builds in prime areas. As an advertising medium, taxis guarantee continuous growth in audience reach because they are always travelling down new streets, both residential and business. Over three months a campaign of 250 taxis will reach more than 3.5m greater London ABC1 adults; that’s 70% of the available audience. More than 30% of the audience are career-driven, upwardly mobile professionals; 20% are established families, perhaps commuting in to London to earn and spend money, and a further 20% are affluent achievers – high earning executives. This is a valuable audience with money to invest with or settle down with. Reaching London’s prosperous audience of house buyers, sellers and renters on the streets, via taxi advertising complements other media that might be running in targeted press or on radio; London’s ABC1 adults are hard-working and time-poor; they need to be reminded of your brand regularly, and taxi advertising will do just that, delivering on average 17 opportunities for the audience reached to see the campaign across the three months. Vitally, this audience is also mobile-enabled and are quick to respond to outdoor advertising seen by researching the brand on their mobile. Many have property apps and will be looking at them daily in their quest to either find or sell a property in this fast-moving market. Don’t miss out – be seen by this opportunity-rich audience both frequently and cost-efficiently via taxi advertising. Sources: Route; Land Registry; The Guardian, City AM – 2016.