Hailo had a new pre-book service they wanted to promote coinciding with the May 22nd Referendum on gay marriage. We approached them with an idea to combine the two.
We were going to offer free trips to the polls on May 22nd, when people used Hailo’s new Prebook service. And so began…our drive for equality.
We started first by announcing that through Prebook ‘The wait was now over’ for taxis while simultaneously helping the cause in its patient wait for equal rights by providing free taxis to the polling station for anyone who used our new service. We wrapped a Hailo Cab in a rainbow flag and send invites out for people to ‘Save the Date’ with our Hailo Prebook. We painted Dublin city in a rainbow with a Pixelstick in our video invite.
Recognising that the national debate had become quite heated in the final days before the vote, we knew that both sides would respond well to a bit of typical Irish humour. Our idea was simple…show how ridiculous all discrimination is by flipping the debate on its head. So we created the Heterophobic Taxi driver…
The public’s reaction to the character was a huge success, shattering previous Hailo campaign numbers, as well as receiving a sensational positive reaction. Despite a low budget and media spend, the videos has been viewed just shy of a million views (995,000), with all of the 730,000 Facebook views being organic. #DriveForEquality trended in Ireland the week of the vote and high profile celebrities with huge followings posted the campaign (Graham Norton 1.1 million followers, Dara O’Briain 2.2 million followers, and George Takei 9.6 million followers on Facebook). The campaign was also covered all around the world with 45 pieces of local press coverage, 11 pieces of International and it even made it on to RudeTube on Channel 4.
New registered users increased by 30%, daily active users grew by 26%, and pre-book cabs on the day increased by 800%. The Yes vote passed with just under 2 million voters turning out on the day, the highest voter turnout since the foundation of the state.
