Context: mytaxi is a taxi app founded in June 2009 by Niclaus Mewes (CEO) and Sven Külper (CMO). With mytaxi, they brought the international taxi market into the 21st century, by allowing passengers to book a taxi ride directly from an app on their phone. Remember that the first iPhone was launched only in 2007, right?

Ten years later, in February 2019, mytaxi announces it will rebrand into FREE NOW. The goal is to become the first European blended mobility app, combining taxis, Private Hire Vehicles, e-scooters, and city bikes into one single app across Europe. (Hello, Uber!)

- Rebranding a well known taxi app after 10 years of existence (strong brand equity) with a very simple and clear name ("mytaxi"), into a completely new brand which has no direct link to the service offering ("FREE NOW") and might be understood in several ways by the public (FREE NOW: is it for free?). Come on, everybody thought about it.

- Explaining to our customers and taxi drivers what FREE NOW is about. Giving a clear meaning to a rather vague name, and bringing alive the "freedom of movement" idea into all CRM communications. All this, while operating in 10 different languages.

- The mytaxi app is available in 9 European countries (Germany 🇩🇪, Austria 🇦🇹, UK 🇬🇧, Ireland 🇮🇪, Spain 🇪🇸, Italy 🇮🇹, Portugal 🇵🇹, Poland 🇵🇱, Sweden 🇸🇪). For each project, we needed to coordinate with our Local Marketing Teams, who would translate all messages for the 10 regional markets (yes, mytaxi speaks Catalan too).

- The rebranding has to happen within 4 months. The new name has to be fully rolled out on July 2nd. 

- Being 2 in-house Copywriters at that time, leading the rebranding campaign from the copy perspective: taking the brief, writing master copy in English, getting it approved, and coordinating all the markets to get the translations done on time. While also being responsible for writing UX Copy for the passenger and driver apps and making sure the new app features being rolled-out (Match, Eco, Ride) are understood by the users.

Credits: FREE NOW

Design Lead: Antonia Stix

Marketing: Maximiliane Ehlers, Gabriela Mais, Daria Zadorozhko, Johannes Klug

Junior CRM Manager: Vanessa Eva

Illustrator: Adam Carry

Designers: Negin Nathaly Nayeri, Julia Ludian, Valerie Fell, Sofia Sita

Senior Copywriter: Jeanette Cejchan

Copywriter: Clotilde Maillard