2022 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Media?

Taxis have always been a choice media. Brands love to use taxis as a placement for ads because they are everywhere across the city. In fact, taxi drivers tend to congregate wherever there are people. For the first time, we were going to use taxis as a medium to change perception about taxi drivers

Background

• Situation Globally over millions of taxi drivers are in operation every day. This commonplace job in every city of every country is a thankless career where nobody even knows who they are. They just fulfill their functional purpose. So much so, that they are called names that aren’t even names – ‘Sir’, ‘Boss’, ‘My friend’, ‘Taxi Driver’. • Brief RTA, Dubai’s transport authority, wanted to recognize their taxi drivers as heroes that keep the city moving. During the pandemic, when the entire city stood still, taxi drivers were a saving grace to the people of Dubai. • Objectives We wanted to ensure that the taxi drivers of Dubai felt truly appreciated and moreover, recognized.

Describe the creative idea / insights (30% of vote)

Our campaign was based on a very real, subconsious, human insight. That we all live in a world defined strongly by visual stimulus. As people, the things we first see are what usually what we create associations with. So if, through no fault of their own, passengers see cabs approaching with the ‘TAXI’ sign on top, they tend to address taxi drivers by functional names. Our approach was to change the first thing that a passenger sees. So we changed the taxi-top lightbox and replaced the word ‘TAXI’ with the name of the driver – creating a new first impression for passengers.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

While millions of taxis are hailed every day around the globe, the city of Dubai has a yellow-cab fleet of 12,000 cars shuttling on the streets every day. With such a large expat and tourist population, this fleet works around the clock and on every corner in the city. Our campaigns for taxi drivers used the taxi lightbox itself as a media device that was always in motion, engaging with multiple people on multiple occasions.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

The idea was implemented on several yellow-cab taxis in the city. Each one would have the TAXI lightbox replaced with the drivers’ names. The lightbox became a medium that communicated the idea on every corner, highway and neighbourhood block in the city. The campaign was launched through a social media video, and took on a viral wave, where key influencers across the city, including members of Dubai’s ruling family’ began sharing the initiative. This was instantly picked up by every major news publication, tv channel, radio station and by thousands of citizens that echoed the positivity of the campaign. Following such a response, RTA proceeded to replace over 2000 taxi tops on its cabs.

List the results (30% of vote)

69.7 million Earned Media Impressions (ZERO spend) 91% increase in Roads & Transport Authority Approval Ratings 73% increase in taxi rides Over 2000 changed Taxi Tops (replaced with driver name)