Work
City Taxis – Multilevel Integrated Identity Campaign
Posted: 17/07/2020
Author: Fishtank
A crown jewel of our work portfolio, this project focused on reintroducing the renowned South Yorkshire brand, City Taxis, and breathing life into their marketing with a new, vibrant identity. Being able to represent the versatility of the company and highlighting their engagement in the local community as well as their charity work has been second to none and helped us unearth the culture of Team City. Working with City Taxis and helping them develop exciting brands like City Grab – who have raised over £58k for key workers and the NHS during COVID 19 – promoting innovative campaigns like their revolutionary Electric Vehicle project and assisting with their Charity Incubator gave us a sense of pride. Pride of being involved in something that pushes our region forward and promotes community engagement. We believe in this project so much we have put it forward for the Prolific North Marketing Awards – a recognition of the great effort invested by the teams at Fishtank and City Taxis who have worked so hard over the last 9 months on this multilevel, complex campaign.
Objectives & Budget
The project started in October 2019. When we met with the City Taxis team, they had a limited initial budget in mind, designated for a small rebrand and a new website. But after learning about the wide scope of their activities, we knew we had to be very strategic about this project. We were also given a tight deadline – the company wanted to launch their new look and platform on 5th December – to be precise, on the evening of the Sheffield Business Awards. To deliver, we set 6 strategic objectives collaboratively:
Objective 1. To rebrand City Taxis and launch a new website by 5th December 2019
Objective 2. To develop the identity and assist with a marketing strategy and roll out for City Taxi’s food delivery sub-brand, launching on 5th December 2019
Objective 3. To achieve more than 40,000 food delivery app downloads by July 2020
Objective 4. To develop identity and assist with strategy, roll out and publicity of the Electric Vehicles initiative
Objective 5. To develop identity and assist with strategy and roll out of the City Taxis’ Charity Incubator
Objective 6: To distil and capture the culture of Team City, and promote the community of City Drivers in order to improve the recruitment drive.
Target audience and strategy
Our target audience for this campaign were the local communities that City Taxis serve – with over 2,000 cars, City focuses on the South Yorkshire region: Sheffield, Barnsley,
Chesterfield, Derby, Dronfield and Rotherham. The launch campaign was directed at the City Taxis customer base and potential new clients, and aimed to reintroduce the City Taxis main brand as well as properly introduce their sub-brands.
The strategy we employed to achieve our SMART objectives required involvement from all Fishtank departments and relied on organised cooperation with the inspired City Taxis team. The main areas of our collaborative plan included:
1. DESIGN AND STRATEGY: Development of a vibrant new City Taxis brand that can easily house a number of sub-identities for the exciting initiatives the company plans
2. BRAND STRATEGY + COPYWRITING: Creation of the name and assistance in developing the marketing mix for City Grab
3. UX & UI DESIGN + FRONT END DEVELOPMENT: New website design and build – user journey mapping used to improve user experience. UI designed to promote the City Taxis and City Grab apps, encouraging downloads. Each sub-brand to have a consistent feel with the overarching brand, but to be distinctive enough to be recognisable.
4. INTEGRATED STRATEGY: Creation of a physical Drivers’ hub and a dedicated Drivers landing page on the website, giving identity to the City Driver community and encouraging new drivers to join. Design of a visual exposure kit including wayfinding, uniforms and car livery to create a cohesive look.
5. ANIMATION + COPYWRITING: An animated introduction of the new City brand coordinated with the website launch on 5th December 2019, the Sheffield Business Awards evening. Video to launch City Grab, Charity Incubator and promote City Electric, the new EV initiative.
6. GUERRILLA MARKETING: Physical City Electric/ EV launch with electric hub in Tudor Square
7. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING: Creating the tone of voice for written and visual communications; assisting with strategies and engagement.
8. MASS MARKETING: Using transactional emails and texts to promote the company at every step of the customer journey
Implementation and creativity
Fishtank Agency teams, collaboratively with the executive team at City Taxis, have worked tirelessly to make this project a success. As outlined in the strategy above, the design, development, strategy and digital marketing teams worked simultaneously to achieve the short deadlines. The trust and confidence City have put in the agency was immense – Fishtank refused to incorporate old into the new and instead came up with completely fresh ideas, even pitching a new name and wider service range for the food delivery app City was planning to launch soon.
Multiple elements had to come together at once, ensuring there is no confusion for the loyal customer base and that the launch, announced at the Sheffield Business Awards, is a smooth transition for their audience. At the same time, the animation, which summarised the history, partnerships, new apps, new processes and new looks, had to introduce three new sub-brands, each captivating with their mission and goals.
Fishtank and City have worked together to gain publicity and promote the new initiatives with campaign activities such as the guerrilla Electric Hub Launch:
Or the citygrab service launch, which – due to the recent COVID pandemic outbreak, has proven to be a great assistance to the Sheffield locals, allowing them to get food and other items delivered straight to their house. During the pandemic, the company decided to use their skills and resources for a good cause: a mini campaign was designed to raise money for local charities and NHS from the citygrab delivery fees.
All of the objectives stated above were achieved and more, with app downloads way above our initial targets and all creative and development work launched in time for key events. Below you can find some detailed stats:
Website:
- 125,052 page views:
- 31,333 citygrab page views (4,661 clicks to download the app from this page)
- 4,322 driver page views
- 1,655 electric page views
City Grab app:
- 57,115 citygrab app downloads since launch
Emails:
- 1,316,815 marketing and transactional emails since campaign start, further reinforcing the new identity and services
Marketing Texts:
- 94,935 in total:
- 25,617 – Derby launch citygrab 99p delivery
- 59,318 – Free citygrab delivery
- 10,000 – City Taxis grocery delivery service
Social media:
- Social post clicks to download the app: 31,656
- Instagram bio clicks to download the app: 2,779
- Citygrab Facebook post reach: 692,411
- Citygrab Twitter/Instagram post impressions: 1,867,113
- 218 entries via citygrab restaurant sign up form
- 142 entries via City Taxis driver sign up form
- 230 replies to the EV Poll via the website
- During lockdown, Citygrab raised a total of £57,184.71 for NHS frontline staff and local charities (Weston Park Cancer Charity, The Children’s hospital Charity, Ashgate Hospice, St Luke’s, Chesterfield Royal Hospital Charity and Cash for Kids) donating their delivery fees to the organisations
The level of integrated strategy and depth we have created for this campaign was rewarded with such successful results and fantastic feedback from their community. Having such strong foundations has ensured that City Taxis has been able to withstand the Covid-19 pandemic, allowing the business to flourish but also, very importantly, give back to their local communities.
You can see more visuals of this fantastic project here:
https://fishtankagency.com/work/citytaxis
Or read about City’s innovative projects here:
