Round 5 of 8: January

Claire Morrisey.

Creative Director, 72 And Sunny Los ANGELES

Claire began her career in New York, working on integrated campaigns for Smirnoff, Macy's and JetBlue. She was lured to the west coast to work on Apple, helping develop everything from the first iPad launch to the release of the Beatles on iTunes UK. She hopped the pond to London for a few years to lead iPhone globally, before joining 72andSunny in Amsterdam to help onboard Google in Europe. She has most recently been back in the US at 72andSunny LA working on Google campaigns, (such as the latest relaunch of the Google App), and Dropbox's first branding campaign.

BRIEF: The Taxi Cab

The situation.

Around the world, the sharing economy is disrupting one of the longest-standing city services: taxi cabs. By targeting young, mobile-first consumers, companies like Uber and Lyft have stolen considerable market share from the taxi commissions in each city.

The background.

Uber and Lyft have solved serious pain points that were rarely discussed before: taxi drivers felt unreliable and unfriendly, the taxi service was technologically disconnected, and to some, the taxi commissions felt like an unfair monopoly that had been unchallenged for too long. To make matters worse, many taxi commissions have taken legal action against the upstart ride-sharing companies, resulting in even more bad press, which has driven away even more potential customers. Check out the battles raging here, here and here.

The challenge.

Restore taxis as the go-to choice for chauffeured rides, by going beyond creating a mobile interface that mirrors Uber/Lyft.

The solution.

Create a set of integrated solutions that any city’s Taxi Commission could put to use. Ideally the solution has several facets that a city could pick among (so that if their budgets don’t allow for a giant PR-generating stunt, there’s a cost-efficient social component they could activate, for example).

Deadline: 11:59pm, Jan 31st 2016 (Pacific Daylight Time)