If television shows and cosmetic companies can advertise on the sides of London taxis, why not money managers?
Axa Investment Managers, Colonial First State Investments, DWS Investments (Deutsche Asset Management’s new pan-European retail brand) and Investec, among other London-based asset managers, are taking their marketing campaigns to the streets of London and other U.K. cities. Overall media spending may be off, but to more and more money managers, taxi ads seem like a good deal.
In 2000 Schroders took out the industry’s first taxi ad. These days the media planning agency affiliated with a financial services company typically signs a deal with Taxi Media, an ad agency owned by U.S. media company Clear Channel Communications; Taxi Media controls more than 85 percent of cab advertising in the U.K. Lloyd Keisner, sales director of Taxi Media, estimates that financial services advertising on taxis is growing about 10 percent a year.
“For us, taxis capture the right type of consumer,” says Scott Stevens, marketing director of DWS. “People who take cabs are generally older and wealthier than the general population. They’re potential fund shareholders.” The key target for DWS, however, is the independent financial adviser. “We are getting the brand into the communities where the IFAs are living and working,” says Stevens. The firm is advertising on about 150 London cabs and a smaller number in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Manchester.
Taxi owners offer two types of advertising deals, explains Nick Jarman, head of International Poster Management, one of the leading agencies specializing in outdoor media. Money managers can advertise only on the sides of the cabs, or they can sign a full livery deal, which provides advertisements on the cabs as well as the taxi receipts and the tip-up seats in the back. Typically, the money manager ads feature the fund family logo and a short tag line. The DWS pitch: “Get in. Sit back. See your future.”
Compared with outdoor posters, taxi ads are relatively cheap. DWS’s Stevens reports that a London taxi deal costs E650 ($702) for a three-month arrangement.
Meanwhile, poster sites at high-profile locations like train stations can cost between £10,000 ($15,700) and £15,000 for just two weeks. Stevens reports that a site over the London Bridge Station, which faces commuters as they cross the bridge, was sold for £52,000 for a two-week period. This was during the run-up to the end of the tax year on April 1, when investment advertising reaches it peak.
Britons are not yet jaded about taxi ads. Notes Katharine Weijsman, advertising manager at Investec: “I think people have become pretty immune to poster advertising. In taxis you have a captive audience.”
Taxi owners appreciate the newfound revenue. Ian Collins, whose London taxi bears the blue-and-red logo of Colonial First State, offers a view from the street. Collins has been driving his own cab for 30 years and until April had never carried advertising. Recently, he signed a two-year, £2,000 deal with Taxi Media to offer advertising on his cab.
“It’s fine, it doesn’t bother me,” says Collins. “The thing is, times are so bad at the moment, every little bit helps.” No fund manager would argue with that.
