The Barclays team are big believers in putting in the hard graft to dig out stories from within the business we work with.
So it was that we came across an idea from a Barclays customer on the brand’s “Your Bank” platform where customers place suggestions and make requests.
The individual who would in the end give the inspiration for the Ping It Cabbie It was a London black cab driver who was asking about using a QR code sticker for Barclays Pingit, the innovative mobile to mobile payment app, inside their cab.
From that came the seed of the idea: could we work with a black cab driver to become the first to trial payment by Pingit in their cab?
The actual “recruitment process” ended up being easy as a host of cabbies wanted to give it a go, citing benefits from convenience to lowering the need to stop at cash machines to greater efficiency to fewer parking tickets.
With that out the way, we set about trialing Pingit for real for five days and doing all the media relations that go with a quirky, real, but ultimately, newsworthy activity
Media loved the whole thing, with an exclusive piece by Harry Wallop in the Daily Telegraph, pieces in the Evening Standard, Metro, Independent, MSN, Aol, Yahoo!, Time Out, Daily Mail Online … even the Herald … and many others to boot.
Oh, and the Australians seemed very interested as the story made national SKY TV news.
Crucially, the product was at the heart of the story and thus every piece carried key messaging for the app and also the innovation piece for Barclays. And, by the by, if you come across a cab driver called Ian who is telling you the virtues of Pingit, it isn’t a stunt … he’s for real.
