We outfitted 125 taxis with GPS trackers synced with a traffic app.

Digital ads on each of those taxis displayed real-time comparisons of the travel times to EWR and JFK from Manhattan.

The idea combined people’s need to know how long their travel time is, with the very means they use to travel. As each GPS outfitted taxi moved, the times displayed updated; irrefutably favoring Newark’s EWR airport.

We outfitted New York’s iconic Yellow Cabs with GPS trackers synced with real-time traffic software. The ads displayed relative travel times to both JFK and EWR airports, updating in real-time as each cab’s position changed.

As each GPS outfitted taxi moved, the times displayed updated; irrefutably favoring Newark’s EWR airport. The software used is the most reliable source of data when considering Manhattan. Over 45,000 data points including distance, traffic patterns, accidents, and road-works are analyzed and optimized in real-time.

The campaign ran from 1st June 2017 – 31st December 2017

The campaign proved enormously successful – United passengers flying out of Newark increased by over 810K vs the same period the previous year (Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Data Center, 2018) and brand favourability jumped from 39% to 55%. (Corporate Reputation Tracker, Edelman Intelligence, 2018)

Nate Silver, statistician, journalist, founder of FiveThirtyEight, and Time’s ‘One of the world’s 100 most influential people’ blogged: “I used to make fun of this incredibly esoteric ad campaign— which used real-time traffic data to try to convince people that EWR (Newark Airport) is faster from Manhattan than JFK— but I'm pretty sure it worked on me.”