Hadrian’s Wall Taxi Company – A Glimmer Of Innovation

Following on from the last blog that focused on the lack of innovation along the Hadrian’s Wall trail, I remembered that there was just one bright spot, which started before the walk and continued during the walk. 

I’d set up Twitter so that I was picking up on anyone tweeting about Hadrian’s Wall, a few weeks before going.  It was set up to get a feel for what people were experiencing.  Within those tweets there were some retweets from advancedtaxis, apparently picking up on when people discussed things to do with Hadrian’s Wall.

During the actual walk I tweeted a comment along the lines of ‘Day 1 of Hadrian’s Wall walk – incredibly tired’.  That got retweeted by advancedtaxis and I thought “Wow, that’s forward-thinking!”.   There was me, exhausted, potentially in need of a taxi during the week (IF giving up of course!) and a local taxi firm had put themselves right in my line of sight.

During the rest of the week I kept an eye on their tweets and noticed that they weren’t retweeting everything to do with Hadrian’s Wall but just tweets that could have been from people who may feasibly need taxis.  It would have cost them nothing to do that and anyone could have been a potential client.  In terms of brand awareness, even before leaving the comforts of home to go on the walk I was aware of that taxi company so if there was such a need it would have been relatively easy to get the taxi service.

Contrary to the last blog, this example shows that there is a bit of innovation happening, and there may also be others promoting their businesses in a similar way along the Hadrian’s Wall trail route (I just didn’t notice them).  We’ll probably see a lot more of this in the future as businesses get to grips with the opportunities that the web provides, and it’ll be fascinating to see how things evolve.