We outfitted 125 taxis with GPS trackers synced with data from 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 means by which they 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. It proved to be significantly faster to get to EWR than to JFK.

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

This real-time data was the basis of the idea - a powerful and objective argument for considering EWR over JFK. Our ads moved all around Manhattan at all hours, showcasing the time people would save by flying United out of EWR.

It was the first time live traffic data had been used in ads constantly moving around the city and Manhattanites saw firsthand that they could get to EWR at least 30 minutes, and often up to an hour, faster than to JFK.

The campaign proved enormously successful.

• United passengers flying out of Newark increased by 810K vs the same period the previous year. (Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Data Center, 2018)

• Brand favorability jumped from 39% to 55%, an increase of 34% vs the same period the previous year. (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.”

We leveraged the very means (taxis) that Manhattanites use to get to the airports to display how long it would take them to arrive.

The goal of the campaign was to increase consideration of Newark Airport (EWR) as the principal NYC airport. EWR is the major hub of United Airlines, and so by enticing passengers to use that airport, they would, de facto, fly United.

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. It proved to be significantly faster to get to EWR than to JFK.

The challenge was overcoming the widely established misperception that Newark is harder to get to (because it’s in a different State), as well as the huge cultural resonance and pride that New Yorkers attribute to JFK.

To combat this, we leveraged two deeply ingrained traits. First, New Yorker’s are obsessed with time (after all, they invented the “New York Minute”). And second, they extensively rely on the routes and time estimates that mobile maps generate.