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Advertising and marketing... I know many of you are aware of the strength of advertising and one of the best ways we can make our presence known is by having our cabs logo’d; this gives the Society much needed advertising. However, the private hire fraternity are also aware of this advantage and have lobbied the authorities for many years to have their vehicles liveried. We in the taxi industry have always resisted their requests with the authorities on the grounds of public safety. Our argument has always been that unscrupulous individuals would put bogus advertising on their vehicles in order to fool the public into thinking the bogus private hire vehicle was authentic. In addition, private hire would then seek to use bus lanes, as they would claim to be easily identifiable and that members of the public would not seek to follow them into bus lanes. Well, that’s one of my theories as why they wish to be liveried. This battle has continued for several years with the authorities finally relenting slightly by allowing private hire to advertise their company on the back window of their vehicles, much to the dismay of the taxi industry. Before the demise of the London Taxi Board, we on the LTB felt that it would be in the interest of the trade to do some advertising/marketing on behalf of the whole taxi industry, especially during the current downturn. Consequently, we approached the LTDA to see if they were prepared to explore joint opportunities of promoting the trade in general to the public at large, with any cost being met by the LTB and the LTDA. The LTDA were interested and the LTB had a website built promoting the whole trade (www.the-london-taxi.com). Because the site was not exorbitant to build and maintain on a monthly basis, the LTDA offered to not only pay for the building of the site, but also cover the cost of the maintenance of the site. This is something that they still do today. The two organisations also thought it would be a good idea to promote the taxi industry with an advert on the back window, using a material that you cannot see from inside the taxi but which could be seen from the outside. This involves using a type of perforated material that ensures just one-way vision. It was suggested that we had a series of adverts funded by the LTB and the LTDA with slogans such as On some journey’s four people can travel cheaper than |
 the tube or perhaps Be safe, be sure, always use a licensed taxi – you know the sort of thing! Anyway, both organisations made representations to the authorities to grant permission for London taxis to carry this type of advertising. But before any approval was granted by the PCO, we saw the demise of the LTB. This was a pity as we were just beginning to accommodate joint ventures with other organisations within our industry for the benefit of the whole trade during this current recession. Then on the 30 October this year, permission was granted by the PCO to allow this type of advertising on taxis. The problem is that there is no LTB anymore. However, I do not believe we should miss this opportunity and to that effect we are in the process of sourcing a company to produce rear window advertising, the only difference to the original plan is that we will only promote our own Society, with our telephone number and website address, subject of course to PCO approval. I am led to believe that the material for these advertisements is quite expensive, consequently, we will initially produce just a limited quantity to see how much interest it provokes from our members. According to the PCO notice announcing this approval, the graphics must not cover more than a third of the area of the back window measured from the bottom. I believe Allen Togwell has written something regarding this topic, in fact I know he has as our conversation regarding this issue prompted me to write this piece to convey to you how and why this approval came about. I believe it is quite interesting and goes a little way to illustrate work that is done behind the scenes. Carrying the rear window advertising for Dial-a-Cab will not be mandatory, unlike our logo, however I would urge as many of you as possible to carry it as it will give us an even greater presence on the streets. Eurostar account |
same rumours as you, consequently we
contacted Eurostar and were told that we were in fact still an ‘approved’
supplier for Eurostar. Roughly translated, that means something like: We
have not closed our account with you, but you probably will not get any work
from us unless there is some dire catastrophe and our other ‘preferred’
supplier cannot supply us with taxis! I have learned over the years that
there is a difference between an approved and a preferred
supplier. It would appear the reason for the loss of the account was due to the fact that Eurostar (and they are not alone) require just one vendor to supply all their stations with both taxis and coaches - in the case of Eurostar, that is St Pancras and Ashford, Kent and as you are probably aware, we are not in a position to fulfil that request. The next station is Euston (West Coast Trains) as they also require just one vendor to supply all their stations with both taxis and coaches. This system has prevailed for some time with WCT, with their last vendor going bankrupt and owing all their suppliers money - including Dial-a-Cab. They have now appointed another vendor to supply all their stations with both taxis and coaches and they have in turn approached us to continue supplying Euston with taxis – but what happens if they go bankrupt as well? When we became suspicious of the last vendor - as we were not getting paid - we approached WCT and they opened an account directly with us. Then when that last vendor went bankrupt, they continued their account directly with us until such time as they could appoint another supplier that could handle all their work nationwide. The new vendor has now approached us to service Euston, but who is to say that the same scenario could not happen again and we will continue to lose work as the customer becomes more and more focussed on having just the one vendor to supply all their transport needs? However, you already know that as I have been telling you for years... And finally... Brian Rice |
