Taxi encourages Kiwis to decline the bank

New locally owned FinTech start up Taxi is using its launch campaign to urge Kiwi business owners to ‘decline the bank’.

Taxi uses technology to unlock funding supported by the billions of dollars of pre-paid provisional tax paid by Kiwi businesses to access funds at about half the cost of a big bank overdraft.

It is an entirely new form of funding that’s only available to New Zealand-based tax paying businesses. 

For Taxi co-founder Nicola Taylor, launching a product that was strongly needed by businesses and connecting with busy business owners in a crowded market required a strong brand and a simple message to cut through the noise. 

“We are on a mission with Taxi to change so much of how we think about business and business funding so we knew we needed to stand out and catch the attention of the businesses we will ultimately end up helping.

“Taxi offers a 7.09 percent rate, which is at least half the rate of most big bank overdrafts, so the ‘decline the bank’ message did exactly that,” says Taylor.

But with a bold new product and a headline like ‘Decline the bank’, significant work had to be done in advance to ensure the numbers were uncomplicated, to build trust in Taxi, and to explain how an entirely new form of funding works. 

The Taxi brand and positioning was created by Previously Unavailable, and launched in close collaboration by lead agency partners Together and Pead.

“We loved working with the team at Taxi on brand, naming, and visual identity. We hoped to reflect some of the positive energy, fresh thinking and impact this business and team are going to make for Aotearoa,” says Simon Pound, Managing Partner, Ventures, Previously Unavailable. 

“It has been a dream project with a bold brief and great ambition, are we’re loving seeing the team changing business by making paying provisional tax into a positive thing for Kiwi companies.”

“Nicola and Josh came to us looking for a partner to help with their paid media for launch, but Together has gone beyond that, supporting the Taxi business across creative, media, analytics, and marketing technology.

“Our approach is designed to build trust for the Taxi brand – but in a disruptive way, utilising traditional media alongside new-to-market targeting solutions in digital. As a Kiwi-owned, independent agency, it has been hugely rewarding to see the work live, and we are excited to continue to help bring Taxi to Kiwi businesses,” says Bridget Whalley, Client Principal at Together.

Pead worked closely with NZIER Principal Economist, Michael Bealing, to crunch the numbers and look at the economic impact Taxi could have and used this to publicly launch the campaign before the first ads were rolled out. 

“Taxi is an amazing product and the benefits to the businesses that use it are so impressive that we had a number of experts say, ‘why hasn’t this been done before?’” says Louisa Kraitzick, Partner at Pead.

“This made PR a key part of the mix – as we needed to ensure that there was a level of understanding and trust as to what Taxi is and how it works from day one,” says Louisa Kraitzick, Partner at Pead.

The ‘Decline the bank’ headline was conceived by creative agency Remade with the creative executions co-developed by Together, and TVNZ / Blacksand based on the singular insight that this is funding for Kiwi businesses, but not like you know it; it was then rolled out across outdoor, local NZ publishers, digital platforms, audio and sponsorship of 1 News after 8pm.

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