Hailo conducts Toronto campaign
By Adnews Staff
Taxi-summoning service Hailo has begun its first advertising campaign in Toronto. The service offers a smartphone application that uses GPS to hail the participating taxi nearest to the user. The out-of-home campaign consists of approximately 100 billboards, plus transit shelter ads and indoor murals in 50 downtown bars and restaurants. The creative makes use of copy such as "Like a Bat Signal for Toronto taxis," "You had me at Hailo," "The Taxi Magnet" "What are you waiting for?" The service launched in Toronto last year with a public relations campaign from Veritas Communications. "It is almost unprecedented for an app to come to market in such a major way," said Randy Carelli of Starcom Media Vest Canada. "It was critical for Hailo to have strong presence where our target is considering taking a taxi, and out-of-home gave us a bold canvas to surround the consumer during key moments of use. We generated some serious buzz right out of the gate, and exceeded our sign-up targets in terms of both drivers and cab service users. Now it's time to further connect with taxi-using Torontonians to get them to integrate Hailo into their lifestyle."