Tip Seat advertising is the interior half of a taxi campaign: printed panels on the fold-down seats inside the passenger compartment, facing whoever is sitting in the back. It is included at no additional cost with every Superside and Full Wrap campaign, and it is the part of the medium advertisers are most often surprised by.
Tip Seat advertising cannot be bought on its own. It is included with every Superside and Full Wrap campaign at no additional cost, and it is not sold as a standalone format or priced separately.
Where the panels sit
A London black cab has fold-down seats — tip seats — facing the main bench. When they are folded up, which is most of the time, the backs of those seats face the passenger directly, at roughly eye level and about a metre away. That surface is the advertising space.
It is an unusual position in outdoor advertising. The passenger is seated, stationary, and has nothing else competing for their attention — no other advertising in the vehicle, and a journey that in London is rarely quick.
How many panels you get
That depends on which fleet the campaign runs on, and it is the one specification difference between the two vehicles that changes the size of the buy.
| Cab type | Tip seat panels | Included with |
|---|---|---|
| Premium Black Cab | Three per vehicle | Supersides and Full Wraps |
| Classic Black Cab | Two per vehicle | Supersides and Full Wraps |
The Premium Black Cab has the roomier passenger compartment of the two and carries three panels. The Classic Black Cab carries two. If the interior message matters to your campaign, that difference is worth factoring into the fleet decision.
Why it does a different job from the exterior
The exterior formats are read in about two seconds, from a few metres, usually in motion. That rewards one message, high contrast and a legible brand — and it punishes anything that needs explaining.
The tip seat is the opposite setting. A seated passenger with several minutes of journey ahead of them can absorb a longer proposition, a website, a QR code or an offer. So the two halves of a taxi campaign are not the same creative at different sizes: the outside builds recognition across the city, and the inside is where you can actually make an argument.
That is also why it is included rather than sold. It is not a bolt-on to an exterior campaign — it is the other half of the same buy, and campaigns work better when the creative is planned for both.
Getting the creative right
- Treat it as a separate execution, not a cropped version of the Superside. The reading conditions are completely different.
- This is the place for detail: what you do, why it matters, where to go next.
- A QR code genuinely works here, and the interior is the only place it can go: QR codes are not permitted on the exterior of London taxis. A seated passenger holding a phone is exactly the right setting for one.
- Design for close viewing. Type that works at three metres looks shouty at one.
How to buy it
By running a Taxi Superside or Taxi Full Wrap campaign — the tip seat panels come with it on every vehicle in the fleet, at no additional cost. Published rates and how campaign package pricing works are set out on taxi advertising costs. Tip seat artwork templates for both fleets are in the Artwork & Creative Guide, and if you want the interior planned properly into the creative, tell us what you are working on.