Eight months after launching in Toronto, app-based cab service Hailo is looking to establish its brand in the market, with its first paid media campaign, which is targeted at adults aged 18 to 65.

With media by Starcom MediaVest Group Canada and creative by Rothco, Hailo’s Dublin-based AOR, the campaign relies on OOH ads, including billboards and TSAs concentrated primarily in the downtown core of the city. It’s supported by social media as well as Facebook’s mobile app install ads tool, which allows brands to promote and drive downloads of their apps on mobile devices. Copy in the campaign includes taglines like “Like a Bat Signal for Toronto taxis,” “You had me at Hailo”, “The Taxi Magnet” and, for the transit stop executions, “What are you waiting for?”

Justin Raymond, president, Hailo, tells MiC that the campaign was the next logical step in the company’s marketing plan, after it had built its presence primarily through PR and social channels since its launch.

He says the campaign’s goal is to drive home the idea that Hailo puts consumers in control of their own taxi experience. Noting that the campaign strategy was conceived from insights gathered from similar efforts in London and Dublin, he adds that the combination of OOH and mobile offered Hailo the best opportunity to reach consumers more directly in the environments where they might need a taxi, and on the device that they need to hail a Hailo cab.

Raymond says it was important to start promoting Hailo because there has been a dearth of advertising in the taxi industry over the past few years.

The campaign will run until the end of June.