JUST EAT, the world’s leading online takeaway ordering service, has revealed a fleet of branded taxis that make getting home and ordering a tasty takeaway treat a one-step process. Passengers travelling in a JUST EAT cab, which have been brought to life by taxi advertising specialists Ubiquitous, can simply tap their smart device against the Near Field Communication (NFC) tag inside the cab to get instant access to the JUST EAT app, offering easy online ordering from over 19,000 restaurants in the UK.

Not only that, but passengers can also win a takeaway treat by tweeting their best excuse for ordering takeaway to @JUSTEATUK using the hashtag #notcooking. The best stand to win a £25 voucher code, which they can redeem whenever they fancy, while putting their feet up and taking a night off from cooking. In addition, taxi receipts distributed by drivers offer passengers promotional discounts on future purchases from JUST EAT.

The campaign involves 100 JUST EAT branded taxis, which will be on the capital’s streets from the end of this year to May 2014. The creative advertising used on the taxis asks passengers whether they are “Running on Empty?” and prompts them to download the JUST EAT app via the in-taxi NFC or Google Play and App Store, while also promoting the company’s tongue-in-cheek, “Don’t Cook, Just Eat” message.

Victoria Bloom, UK Head of Brand at JUST EAT, commented: “This campaign is a great way to engage with hungry Londoners on their way home. Just as you’re thinking what to have for dinner, you can jump in a JUST EAT cab and order a takeaway treat so easily and quickly that it could be waiting for you when you arrive. The campaign we are running with Ubiquitous with NFC enabled taxis supports our key message – to maximise customer convenience and enhance the takeaway experience.”

Andrew Barnett, Managing Director, Ubiquitous added: “JUST EAT is using a variety of mechanisms to capture the attention of Londoners with black cabs. An exciting livery on the outside grabs the attention of the public on the street, while what’s happening inside the cab maximises engagement with passengers inside. Promotions on receipts and the tasty takeaway giveaway mean this campaign should create many happy customers.”

The team here have put many great looking taxi adverts on the road since 1988 when the Livery was first approved by TfL; in fact, creative brand impact is one of the main reasons why clients opt for Liveried taxis, making a significant investment in terms of money and brand presence. Designing a ‘wrap’ for a taxi is quite a challenge; we’re lucky enough to have adept designers who work for us, creating both mock-ups and final artwork for clients, but, despite all the expertise on offer, tackling the nuances of the taxi wrap can be a challenge for creative teams. This was really emphasised to me last week when we wrapped a sample taxi for a client, something we do if specifically requested as it takes 4 hours to apply the vinyl. I should mention that this Livery is a particularly complicated design and that the creative team, who were present for the ‘inspection’, have been exacting in their attention to detail and use of colour. Our client wished to see an example of how their taxis will look when they’re on the road, so we wrapped one so that everyone could be assured that the colours, design and finish would deliver the desired level of brand impact. Of course, by this stage everyone should have a pretty clear idea of what to expect; they’ve tinkered with the template, on which the design flows effortlessly across roof, door and wing, and they’ve checked the copy that runs over the curves of the bonnet, so you would think that this would be a simple box-ticking exercise. However, I was there with the creative team (as was the printer, our production team, fitting team, media agency and client) and, although we can all confidently say that the taxi looked stunning, it did not pass with flying colours. ‘Why not?’ I hear you ask. The main reason is that, when the creative team develop their beautiful design, they can’t possibly appreciate the awkward manner in which vinyl behaves when applied to a taxi, making the task of lining up complicated design elements a challenge for even the most skilled technicians, which our posting team are. The very beauty of the Livery is what makes it such a challenge to fit – the design can run seamlessly across several body panels and compound curves. Creative teams go to great lengths to maximise the brand opportunity of this unique 360° canvas, but there’s a vast difference between creating your design on a flat template and applying it to two tonnes of vehicle! I have seen our fitting team post many intricate livery designs, so fully appreciate the attention to detail and the on-the-job knowledge that goes into achieving a flawless finish. To successfully apply vinyl to a taxi in a way that means it won’t peel off and will follow the curves of the bodywork without wrinkle or bubble requires heat. Our team are armed with heat guns, squeegees and strong fingers, with which they manipulate every inch of the vinyl. But what happens to this material when you warm it up? It stretches and distorts, which is exactly what you want for a flawless fitting but can really play havoc with the design. To see your team and the client’s creatives huddled over the design template, discussing the nuances of compound curves, the effect of heat on vinyl and the stretch impact of application, was a proud moment, really. These guys, who have the tough job of applying campaigns to cabs and have thousands of hours of expertise (it takes 6 months of training to be a Ubiquitous livery fitter), are rarely asked for their opinion about design, yet they are perhaps the most knowledgeable people of all when it comes to understanding what works effectively and looks good on a taxi. On this particular day, when the creative team came to take a look at their design and talk to our fitters, they gained a new appreciation for the ‘art of fitting’ and, as such, the final design will be all the better for it. Just one hour with our guys gave the creative team enough knowledge to be able to adjust their design to accommodate fitting nuances. No two taxi designs are the same; each requires our team to ask themselves, ‘what’s the best way to do this?’ Now sometimes that question is answered subconsciously because they’ve spent months in training and years fitting, so they just get on with the job, but every now and then a client throws us a curve ball, which we must always catch. Take the beautiful Heathrow campaign that depicted purple ribbon flowing across the whole taxi. Our team will have paid special attention to a design like this, to make sure that the printed panels were applied in such a way that the path of the ribbon’s flow was maintained. It’s their skill alone that ensures the final result matches the client’s expectations and they use every trick in the taxi-fitters’ book to do so! How refreshing it is, then, for our team to be asked from the outset about the best way to approach a livery design, to ensure that the art of wrapping a taxi is a winning collaboration.

Some of our followers may be aware that at the start of March we put a campaign on the road for Microsoft that signified a new dawn in the evolution of taxi advertising. For the first time ever, there is now a fleet of London Hackney Carriage taxis featuring free Wi-Fi and NFC marketing. This new opportunity goes under the moniker ‘CabConnect’ and is the latest in a long line of innovations from the team here at Ubiquitous. (watch the video for a quick immersion: https://vimeo.com/64050045) Our launch advertiser, Microsoft, has sponsored 225 taxis for three months and will reap the brand benefits that come with being the provider of free Wi-Fi. In fact, this moment in the history of taxi advertising is, unusually, a win-win-win situation, in that we’ve created an offering that goes beyond an advertising opportunity; free Wi-Fi in taxis will change London for the better, enabling people on the move to stay reliably connected, providing cabbies with a beneficial service to offer passengers and giving brands a chance to interact with upmarket individuals in a manner that’s unobtrusive and opt-in. But we didn’t just arrive at this idea by chance; the dawn of Wi-Fi and NFC enabled taxis has been some 18 months in the pipeline and was driven by the desire to bring taxi advertising into a converged media world, in a manner that would be rewarding for brands and appealing to passengers, the latter being the most important for an opt-in proposition such as this. Only after thorough audience research did we pursue the CabConnect idea, having been reassured by the facts, (rather than our gut-feel), that this was the right thing to do in terms of passenger brand engagement. As important as free in-taxi Wi-Fi might be to London, let’s not forget that we’re in the advertising business and that this is a commercial proposition that aims to repay our capital expenditure and provide return on investment for brands. CabConnect is very much a screen media opportunity, but we’re in the 21st century now, so when we say ‘screen’ we mean ‘smart screen’; the phone in every pocket, the tablet in every tote. To ignore the power of the connection that we, the public, have with our smartphones and tablets, would be missing a trick. Our NPD research revealed that for 90% of people, their smartphone is their first port of call when looking something up, and that 88% quite simply wouldn’t leave home without their mobile. For brands, what better way could there be to engage consumers than via this very personal and vital lifestyle tool? It’s also important to remember that this isn’t a ‘space invasion’ opportunity for brands – this is all about the power of choice and placing that power in the hands of the taxi passenger, and indeed, placing their experience at the heart of your communication strategy. Invite them to interact, rather than push content upon them, and you will be handsomely rewarded. It’s a staggering fact that over 70% of taxi passengers agree that smartphone interaction is a suitable way to be served product information in a taxi, and that if you let them explore at will, they’ll be much, much more likely to remember your brand messages. ‘Choice’ lies at the root of this success story, as does ‘relevancy’; the phrase ‘build it and they will come’ has little place in today’s world where consumers rule the roost, because, quite frankly, ‘they’ may simply choose to go elsewhere. If a brand neglects to offer content that’s relevant, useful or appealing to consumers then the motivation to pay attention wanes and that all important brand union is jeopardised. Of course, all of this is highly subjective, as one man’s meat is another man’s poison; but by providing brands with the opportunity to create a bespoke Wi-Fi portal, our research told us that in one fell swoop, we’d be offering something that would appeal to the desirable taxi passenger audience. How a brand chooses to tailor their mobile engagement opportunity is of course, up to them; but as we all know, content is king, and once the trade has been made, taxi passengers are significantly more likely to pay attention to the brand, in return for the Wi-Fi. Despite all the research we’ve done, there’s nothing so rewarding as seeing the real-time usage levels first hand or reading the Twitter comments of those who’ve discovered, to their delight, that the taxi they’re in has free Wi-Fi! We’ve had some great stories too from our cabbies, who’ve commented that passengers have extended their journeys (all the way out to Heathrow in a number of cases), on learning that they can stay connected for free. Even though we’re less than one month into this ground-breaking Microsoft campaign, it’s already been such a success for all involved to have implemented a service that’s useful and valuable for London. CabConnect is transforming journeys in ways that are rewarding for all involved, just as we hoped it would.

Check Em Lads teamed up with Ubiquitous to run a superside campaign in the capital, in the run up to the charity’s 10th anniversary. Phil Morris, who started the Check Em Lads charity, campaigns for men to be pro-active about testicular cancer and his ethos remains the same as it did from the outset, “My aim in establishing Check em Lads was to find a way that was accessible, educational and supportive and importantly, informal”. The ingenious idea behind this campaign is to target, amongst others, male taxi drivers, with an awareness message that encourages drivers to ‘check ‘em’ on a regular basis.

The taxis were used for a professional photo shoot at Carnaby Street, featuring active supporters of the charity, drummer Steve White and radio presenter Ian Collins. Photos of the campaign were used on social networking sites to promote awareness about testicular cancer and the charity itself.

Here at Ubiquitous we like to talk about icons; we truly believe that the black cab is an icon and we go so far as to say so in our strapline, iconsonicons. But what is it we mean by this? What is it that makes something iconic and therefore worthy of more note than something that is simply famous? Having settled on this topic for the blog, I found myself challenged to define what I believe makes an icon; I felt it was more important to try to decide this for myself first, rather than simply look it up or Google famous icons. My conclusion is that, these days, we bestow the moniker too freely and that to truly be an icon, or be iconic, requires that you stand for a well-defined set of values, and that this standing has endured over time. Perhaps, therefore, death is one of the greatest catalysts to becoming an icon. If you are dead, you are not very well able to ruin your own reputation, and if the values that you represented are those which everyday people aspire to, such as glamour, strength or humanitarianism, even the fact that you may have ended your days in a drug-fuelled stupor fails to tarnish your image and, indeed, may even enhance it. It’s much easier to maintain your iconic status if you are dead; the photos of your life, your films or your achievements endure because people aspire to the values they represent and, over time, these values are bestowed upon you, regardless of whether you actually held them dear or not. Therefore, I conclude that it is much harder to become an icon if you are alive and even harder to maintain that status. It is much more likely that you have simply featured in famous images of your time and that these are representative of an important moment and therefore will pass into the hall of fame as being iconic. You may have achieved iconic status through your single-minded ambition to be one, or you may have achieved it unintentionally through the accomplishment of your goals. Some people do not aspire to fame, but it’s impossible to avoid it if you achieve, innocently or not, the status of icon. This summer in London we witnessed many memorable moments in which people were transformed into famous household names: their images of triumph, pain, disappointment and compassion representing iconic moments of the Olympic Games. Over time, will those individuals become as iconic as the images in which they feature? I think not. They may change career or they may fall from grace and we might forget them; nevertheless, the values of those moments, captured for all time in an iconic image, will endure. I have concluded that there are two more types of icon, which rely more heavily on reputation than imagery; these are brands and, by extension, services. Now I will say that the ‘services’ part is a bit woolly, but you will see what I mean in a moment. I think everyone will agree that there are some brands that stand out from the crowd, and this is not necessarily because they are market leaders, but because they have stood true to their values and have transcended the status as simple service provider to take a stake in popular culture. Virgin’s popularity as a brand in the eighties far outstripped its market size and it achieved this simply by challenging everything that our well-established long-haul airline market was built on, publically upsetting the applecart in the process. It has stood by these values ever since and people continue to love the brand for flying in the face of the establishment. Over time, if an iconic brand has embedded itself in social culture, it needs nothing more than a visual trigger to bring a clear set of values to mind: the Nike swoosh, the Apple logo, the shape of the Fiat 500, the golden arches. When all that a brand requires to maintain its presence are visual triggers then it has triumphantly connected with culture, has delivered on its promises and has won hearts and minds. It has become an icon of the values that it stands for and is so powerful that other brands want to be associated with it, as do people. Which brings me neatly back to the black taxi and my ruminations about why this service, which has in itself become a brand, is considered to be an icon of Great Britain. My conclusion is that the black cab itself stands for a well-defined set of values that transcend the trusted and knowledgeable service provided and that these deep-felt values have endured over the years. Yes, cabs are expensive and, yes, the iconic shape has changed (and will continue to do so), but this global reputation as the best cab service in the world and the vehicle’s status as London’s most iconic form of transport demonstrate that the icon which is the black cab is greater than the sum of its parts and represents values that are attractive to advertisers, whether they’re already icons or not. Icon: ‘a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol, or as worthy of veneration’ (OED) WATCH OUR LATEST VIDEO: The Black cab, 2012 Global Icon.

Do you feel like there are precious few moments in the day when you get to do the little things? You know what I’m talking about – those small jobs you’ve got to remember to do, personal or otherwise, that wake you up in the night: arrange travel insurance, book the cinema, check a bank transfer, find an electrician.These are the details of everyday life – the dotting of the i’s and crossing of the t’s, the small ticks and checks that keep all the ducks in a row. If they are so important, why do I find myself cramming them into the parts of my day that used to be the ‘breathing space’? It’s not just me who feels like this. The economic pressure of recent years has taken its toll on people; work and home life interrupt each other more frequently now; lunchtimes are taken up with ‘catching up’; and travel between A and B normally involves checking emails, going online and making calls on that life tool, the smartphone. What would we do without it? If you’re an advertiser, how do you cut through this clutter? How do you keep up with the pace of people’s lives?  How do you get them to stop and look at you? Must you always be hunting for the gaps in the day when there are no interruptions, or must you keep running at the same pace as the people you’re trying to reach?The answer to both is yes, you must; if you want to talk to your audience, you’ve got to do it on their journey through everyday life.Never an industry to get left on the starting block, marketing constantly embraces new technology, and invests a lot of time and energy exploring the most effective moments to utilise it. The most recent manifestation of this is near field communication, or NFC: the close-contact radio communication that enables smartphones to receive and transmit data.Sounds all very complicated, but in fact NFC is the simple (and intelligent) solution for brands that need to have an on-going, relevant, timely and instant communication with a target audience, no matter where they are (check out this great demo video from Posterscope). The trick is to combine the NFC placement with those times and locations in the day when we, the consumers, still have a little bit of breathing space – enough to briefly have our heads turned by an ad that asks us to ‘tap our phones for more info’. Interest in NFC interaction is building quickly and not only amongst industry people; the public are taking an interest too and, as more phones enter the market and more brands take up the opportunity, there’ll soon come a time when tapping an ad or downloading info via your NFC phone is as second nature as swiping your Oyster card. Most people are well practised at using a smartphone when walking (well, they think they are), so will quickly get used to the idea of tap-and-go communication, making Outdoor more ‘in the moment’, relevant and personal than ever before. Many mobile brands and card operators are already talking about fully integrated mobile wallets and it’s my feeling that it’s just this type of service that will help NFC to quickly move from being ‘new’ to ‘mainstream’. This week the European Commission announced the go ahead for the UK’s three largest mobile operators to form a joint venture to introduce NFC mobile payments and promotional services: another big step towards making NFC a part of everyday life. Of course, it will be the early adopters who secure themselves a new NFC phone first – those guys who are the most desirable (and hardest) people to reach. But even in targeting the tech-savvy, brands will need to invest time to educate them about this new touchpoint. So dwell time could be the key here, as well as placing your NFC tags in locations with few distractions – somewhere that easily permits consumer opt-in.  Bus stops, train station platforms and the interiors of black taxis all spring to mind as locations that present adequate dwell time and the opportunity for a deeper, lengthier one-to-one consumer engagement. Already the leading media owners, agencies and advertisers are trialling the technology in these locations, in order to test the reactions of those all-important ‘early adopters’. Looking to the future is really one of the key reasons why Outdoor is a billion-pound industry with a pioneering reputation, and here at Ubiquitous we hope that taxi advertising can play a part in growing that. We’ve done our homework; we know that over 65% of regular taxi passengers access the internet via their smart-phones during their taxi journeys and, with these averaging at 20 minutes, adding NFC into the taxi advertising proposition will enable Ubiquitous clients to capture the attention and imagination of passengers during one of life’s little journeys. If you want to find out more, just call the Ubiquitous team.

Crocs turned to taxi advertising, with an aim to get the shoppers of London to take a fresh look at their brand and witness how they have ‘evolved’ in their 10th Anniversary year. 10 joyfully outlandish Liveries with a ‘croc skin’ style were created for a one year campaign, illustrating how the brand has re-established itself as so much more than just the iconic clog.

As part of their attention grabbing strategy, Crocs included various promotional tools, to ensure their campaign was miles ahead on the road. From store locations and a Facebook link on their creative to discount incentives on the receipts, all the stops were pulled to achieve a successful edge.

PR elements were also incorporated into the campaign. Crocs chose to offer VIP journeys to their new pop up store and to hand out driver briefing sheets, giving the drivers the opportunity to be ‘brand ambassadors’. The sheets offered a solution to passenger questions and allowed the drivers to assist in the promotion of the product. An added encouragement for the drivers was also given in the form of a free pair of shoes and a set of sunglasses. Providing the drivers with knowledge and experience of the brand gave them an incentive to discuss the extensive range with their passengers and provide interested customers with the relevant information to entice them into store.

Michael Marshall-Clarke, European Marketing Director of Crocs “At Crocs we’re not afraid to break the mould or stand out in a crowd, so our unique crocodile taxi advertising fits well with this approach. In this, our 10th anniversary year, we believe through taxi advertising we will instantly capture the attention of a wide London audience and achieve fantastic, all-access visibility this summer and beyond.”

So far this has been an immensely exciting summer to be in London. Since the early days of June, when the Jubilee celebrations focused global attention on the capital, the energetic feeling has been building and enthusiasm for all things ‘London’ has been growing. Even the appalling weather and the gripes about Olympic transport and security have failed to truly dampen spirits. However, when you live and work in London it’s all too easy to get caught up in the every-day politics and inconveniences of being the host city and, unless you actually have tickets for the games, you’re probably amongst the working masses who think that the whole thing is a day-to-day hassle. But now that the event has actually started, the wind seems to have changed to one of positivity; finally we’ve caught up with the rest of the world and gotten ourselves all excited about the Games! This point was really brought home to me last week when I spoke to a friend recently returned from Singapore; he said that the enthusiasm for the London Olympics was immense there; people were genuinely excited that we are the host city. Similarly, friends in the US have expressed what a momentous time this is for London. In the run up to the Games it was all too easy to lose sight of the fact that the rest of the world waited for the opening ceremony with baited breath. Sure the tube is a nightmare, packed with tourists who don’t have a clue where they’re going, and we’ve all had to change our well established travel habits to avoid getting caught up in the hordes, but the Games are here now and it has been impossible not to get infected with the global enthusiasm that has welcomed the opening of London 2012. Most of us in the commercial world are hoping that when all’s said and done, 2012 will have been a success for business and a much needed boost for the British economy; some businesses of course, will have done better than others. If reports are to be believed, much of Outdoor has been bought by non-sponsors with some of the key packages remaining unsold. I regularly hear the rumour Ubiquitous has bucked the trend in this area, but honestly, we really didn’t know whether taxis would be a success or not. We just created our strategy and stuck to it. Back in February I wrote a piece in which I tentatively expressed hope that this year would be a good year for taxi advertising – all the signs were there and the pipeline was looking good, we had all our Operational ducks in a row, (more posting staff, bigger premises, more taxis etc.), but it was early days. Happily, and at the risk of appearing to blow the Ubiq trumpet, I can report that the rumours are true; demand for taxi advertising has been huge and 2012 has been a phenomenal success. Right now we have more than 30 different campaigns running, on close to 4,000 taxis, in London alone. Clearly the Olympics have boosted our revenue, but why were taxis snapped up so quickly and for almost the whole year, when other formats have struggled? My theory rests on a very public love for the medium. London is an iconic city, with national treasures that are globally recognised, be they modern day architectural wonders such as the Eye and Shard or long-established institutions such as the double decker bus and the Tube. It’s fair to say that the taxi is right up there with these much loved icons; in fact, over 70 of Londoners polled agree that the black taxi is the most iconic form of London transport. If you want to brand and ‘own’ a piece of London this year, taxi advertising presents a pretty convincing case for itself. With all the new digital technology in Outdoor, the mega-sites, renovated billboards, improved positioning, site and day part targeting etc. it’s easy to lose sight of a very simple principle: Outdoor’s appeal is in its capacity to build brands. Perhaps one of the best ways to do this is via the iconic London taxi (I would say that of course), but when all’s said and done, we really have seen a huge demand in taxi advertising from global brands, right across 2012 and perhaps the reason behind this is nothing more complicated than the simple fact that taxi advertising delivers against a set of core Outdoor benefits: iconic brand status, high impact creativity and excellent cover and frequency from following those madding crowds that the rest of us are so keen to avoid! Andrew Barnett

So far this year we’ve been fortunate enough to secure a number of campaigns from fashion and cosmetics clients; some have used taxi advertising before, so are familiar with the medium, but others have been harder to win; they’re new to taxis and so had to be persuaded of the brand benefits. Added to this, many prestige clients are based outside the UK and may be unfamiliar with how taxi advertising looks in this country. These are challenges that will ring true with any media sales professional, and overcoming them is part and parcel of the selling process. However, we often find that the challenges don’t stop when the booking sheet is signed; sometimes creative complications arise and these can be deal-breakers or can threaten to undo all that good salesmanship. Sure, many Creatives experience problems adapting their client’s existing campaign to an unfamiliar format, but frequently we find that the issue isn’t because of unfamiliarity so much as nervousness to change a layout that has already been ‘signed off’. I have mentioned fashion and cosmetic clients because ‘brand look’ is of paramount importance to them, but they are by no means unique in this. Many clients create campaigns that are shot seasonally and are precisely formatted according to brand guidelines, achieving maximum emotional or aesthetic impact. Campaigns which, once signed off, are only altered after prolonged consideration by a team of people who often reside in different countries. This isn’t a dig at image conscious clients, it’s simply an acknowledgement that we understand how awkward it can be when we say, ‘your artwork layout doesn’t work for a taxi; we suggest you alter it.’ Many such problematic campaigns have already been specifically created with portrait magazine or poster ads in mind, and once shot can’t be easily revisited; that window of opportunity has closed. And so the creative agency or in-house designer is asked to adapt a very prescriptive layout to a very unusual format: taxis. It’s at this point that we, and the media agencies we work with, should step up and offer constructive and relevant creative guidance; after all, we’ve successfully pitched taxis on the basis that the brand will look great and the campaign will be effective. This is where being an expert in your field and understanding the overall effect that the client wishes to maintain, really matter. It is here, after the deal is done, that media owners and agencies are often asked to earn their dough and quite rightly too, as I believe that we have a responsibility to ourselves and Outdoor as a whole, to deliver the best campaign possible. Every day there are established clients trying new formats, new formats reaching out to established clients; sometimes there are new clients launching on to new formats, which makes everyone nervous. Somewhere along the line, someone is spending brand money on an idea they’ve not tried before, which can be a risk. They’ve probably persuaded internal stakeholders that taxis, for example, are great for the campaign, but what if they have to go back to the board again and tell them that the artwork doesn’t work on the format they’ve championed? Having persuaded them to take this risk, we have a responsibility to provide support from start to finish, ensuring that their risk pays off. The easy route would be to simply take the artwork and run it, regardless of how uninspiring it is, but nobody wins then; the client thinks that the medium isn’t a good place for their brand and we, as media owners, know that our format could have looked better. It’s a delicate line to walk, telling the client that the artwork that they’ve submitted really doesn’t work, but for the sake of campaign effectiveness and brand aesthetics, sometimes you just have to put your art director’s hat on, (even if you’re a media sales guy), and do the right thing: speak your mind. This path might result in pushed deadlines and stress, but at the end of the day, the client got out of their comfort zone and booked a new format, so we should get out of ours and have the conversation about improving the artwork. In our experience providing the best service, rather than the easiest service, is always worth the effort. ANDREW BARNETT

The "Cabmageddon" competition gave shoppers and party goers free rides home on the busiest night of the year! The free rides were also promoted in the press which meant everyone was looking to get a free ride. A Facebook competition also gave lucky winners the chance to get a free ride by dropping a pin on a map to show where they lived and why they were the most deserving of a free ride! To add extra goodwill and Christmas sparkle, a special build taxi had red antlers added to the roof.