Keep up the great work and thanks for keeping me around…

While the cabbie and I didn’t discuss tips, I’m not surprised that tips go up. (Although I know for myself that when I pay in cash, I frequently tip to a round dollar, which is invariably more than 15-20% would be!) I think the cabbie would agree with you, however. When I asked him if he wished he didn’t have the machine, he said no. He said that he used to lose fares to people who didn’t have cash, and would wait for a cab that took credit cards.

But the cabbie’s relationship to the machine wasn’t really my point. My point was that the people selling the ads were missing the opportunity for
1. strong contextual relevance in terms of the commercials they ran,
2. cause related marketing and public service in terms of supporting local events and non-profits,
3. deeper engagement with the customers in the back of the cab that they would gain from giving them something of value,
4. an ongoing opportunity to market to those customers in the future by giving them a coupon/discount opportunity on sightseeing or visiting a business that advertised, that they could only take advantage of by texting to an SMS short code or visiting a mobile website,
5. turning the cabbie into an advocate and affiliate by giving them some rev share,
6. gathering information/surveying via the touch screen to be used to improve their offering or for the city tourism commission, 411.com, the Taxicab Commission, NBC programming, etc. etc. etc.

If you have a swiss army knife and you only use it for the toothpick, what’s the point?