Lähitaksi | Taksini

The premise

Republic and Finland’s largest taxi company, Lähitaksi, started their collaboration in the summer of 2018. It was a summer of change with the legislation governing taxi companies changing to allow competition. The increasing competition didn’t only mean more choices for the consumer, it meant that the drivers would also have much more employment opportunities.

The implementation

Republic didn’t create just an advertising campaign – we created a change campaign. Republic built a three-dimensional change strategy for Lähitaksi, consisting of external communications, application development and service design, and the plan for internal communications and culture change.

Getting the drivers to commit to the changes and creating an excellent service image became both important campaign elements and competition edges.

The results

The multidimensional combination of communications, service development and advertising, as well as internal inspiration and culture development created growth that exceeded the client’s expectations.

The Taksini app envisioned by Republic and implemented by a software partner exceeded the old Lähitaksi app in users within less than a month. The internal communications and inspiration work had 1000 Lähitaksi drivers commit in marketing the app, exceeding the goal by 600 percent. The Taksini area expanded already in 2018, when other areas in Finland took the app into use in addition to the ones available at launch.

Thanks to the communications provided by Republic, Lähitaksi stayed as a weekly topic in the earned media, from May to the end of 2018. With the (reveal) events, press releases, and interviews given by Lähitaksi, Lähitaksi was mentioned in hundreds of articles, both at the local and national level.

Now, after a challenging period of change, Lähitaksi remains as Finland’s largest taxi company.