24 June 2020

New £100,000 London Taxi Advertising Campaign Set For July

As the country slowly eases out of lockdown, people have slowly had to adjust to a new normal. For some returning to work, this has included having to find alternate ways to travel to work whilst social distancing remains in place.

Whilst many are now turning to walking, cycling and driving to work, taxi drivers across the country are hoping to entice new and returning passengers to use their vehicles as a much safer mode of transportation.

As a means to entice passengers into using taxis around London, the London black cab industry, lead by the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association (LTDA), are launching a new PR campaign across the city.

The first part of the campaign will run on the radio station LBC (Leading Britain’s Conversation). Advertisements will feature on the radio station all day on every presenter show. There will be 2 different adverts broadcasting on the channel, each with the same theme of encouraging people to use the city’s cab fleet.

Further Campaigns

In August, further adverts may feature on radio stations, as well as digital billboards all across London. This campaign as a whole is likely going to cost up to £100,000.

Steve McNamara, LTDA General Secretary, said: “As London slowly, very slowly begins to return to some sort of normality, we have been working hard designing an advertising campaign to promote the trade, and establish us as the only transport option that is clean, partitioned and where social distancing is possible.”

“We set a budget of £100,000 and thought long and hard about the best medium to use, and the best time to launch to get maximum impact. Had we launched too soon the message could become lost, before most people started venturing out, too late and we could lose the momentum.”

McNamara added: “Together with our campaign team we looked at all the options. TV is massively expensive and with so many channels it’s almost impossible to target our key London and home counties audience. The free press, such as the Metro, is picked up at tube stations and bus stops with less capacity on buses and tubes the potential audience is reduced, with the same applying to adverts on the tube itself.”

“Billboards” by Cristiano Betta, used under CC BY / Modified from original