Why advertising is an old taxi and content marketing is Uber

A lot of us would have witnessed in recent months the dogged resistance by established taxi companies against Uber ride sharing services. This is understandable; they have an outdated business model under threat from modern App technologies.

In the advertising and marketing game, we have seen our own version of this standoff for a lot longer.

To put things into context, if the traditional taxi brands run across the state by Cabcharge and Uber both got into the advertising, branding and marketing business, the incumbents would be the old style advertising agency while Uber would be the upwardly mobile content marketers and lead generators.

Why? Because of the way each uses their respective technologies

Regardless of what Cabcharge CEO Andrew Skelton stated in today’s press, the clear difference is that traditional taxi brands have been using technology limited to the confines of their own protected, regulated and until recently, unchallenged market.

In short, the industry model has been structured to limit and control competition. It is an expensive system based around high-capital licenses, expensive buy-in costs, and caps on numbers of taxi plates which means consumer demand largely outstripped supply. Ultimately, prices have been very high and efficiency questionable.

Where Uber changed the dynamic is simple: its use of technology puts a larger level of control into the hands of the consumer, which means wider choice and lower prices.

Mr Skelton’s claim that Cabcharge’s biggest mistake was to comply to with rules and regulations is probably a valid argument, but in truth his organisation hasn’t adopted emerging technology wisely and left the door open for a leaner operating newcomer.

What traditional taxis companies are experiencing is the same as the retail sector is with online buying. The sheer mass of public demand should be evidence enough that their business model is now dragging its feet in the past.

We see this on a daily basis in the marketing game. While many businesses are still spending big with advertising agencies producing high-cost branding collateral and paying again for space on which to advertise it, the smarter companies are thinking like publishing companies and letting their words do the work, 24/7, as buyers continue to make more and more searches on Google.

Their reward is online real estate space which they tightly control, which they can change at will, which delivers data on performance, and ultimately will drive leads for new business.

They are reluctant to pay for space in magazines and newspapers, spend big on unnecessary colour and logo changes, or pay a group of people to sit in a room and ‘brainstorm’ on their behalf.

They think and use technology as intelligently as Uber. Through a modern online business model, they find they can invest a modest amount in their marketing and let technology multiply its net effect and reach and return trackable performance data on this investment.

Their competition, stuck in the past, is busy paying for expensive brochures, magazine adverts, radio recordings and TV commercials. They are paying to produce them and to distribute them only to not have a clue who, if anyone, is actually sighting them.

They are dealing with the old-style taxi companies and are paying accordingly for the expensive, tired and outdated business model.

If you have adopted a modern, fast and software-managed content marketing platform, let your opposition keep doing it the old way as it will be better for your lead generation.

You are doing it like Uber and are saving yourself time and a lot of money.

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