Santa´s red taxis warming up for Rovaniemi

Rovaniemi regional taxi company, Rovaniemen Aluetaksi Oy plans to repaint its entire fleet with Santa Claus red.

The company will also launch a taxi competitive brand work to oversee the refinement of the taxi work. In addition to Santa’s red taxis, Rovaniemen Aluetaksi also has a Christmas station in mind.

“We have to complete some procedures before implementing the plan and we hope to repaint entire fleet with Santa Claus red after the summer,” Rovaniemen Aluetaksi Managing Director Juha Hotti told Finnish News Network (FNN).

He also said that in New York, there are red taxis; Rovaniemi [taxis] are red. Every time when Santa Claus is mentioned, Finland, Lapland, and Rovaniemi should be evoked.

Santa Claus Foundation CEO Petri Paarnio told local media that switching the colour of the taxis to red would be wonderful.

Rovaniemen Aluetaksi and the Santa Claus Foundation have already struck a deal investing the taxi company with the right to use Santa brand for marketing.

The agreement can be seen in the marking “Santa's official taxi” on the bodies of the taxis.

The shade of Santa red has its own definition, observed Paarnio. The shade can be found at number 485 on the PMS colour chart.

Sometimes the colour is indicated as number 186 on the same chart. These are the Santa Claus colours.

“Shade 485 is fresh red heart. It is not dark red and not quite bright red,” Paarnio described.

One of the proposals by the brand working group demands taxi entrepreneurs to see all the taxis in Rovaniemi region change colours to Santa Claus red.

The Santa’s red taxi, however, is still just a proposal and, therefore, there is no need to rush to the paint shops, taxi entrepreneur Juha Ylipaavalniemi told Finnish language daily Lapin Kansa recently in a deliberatively dispassionate voice.

“The proposal has drawn divided opinions. Some like the idea more than others,” he pointed out.

However, the official branding of the Santa’s taxis, according to Ylipaavalniemi, will yield more customers for the taxis. The Christmas season anyway has seen more taxi rides.

The working group will give a final proposal in March regarding the taxi appearance, among other things.

The proposal will be deliberated on immediately during the annual general meeting. If it is approved, Ylipaavalniemi believes, a certain period of time will be allocated to change the colour. “It will not be necessary to change the paint immediately, but rather on a sliding schedule.”

And, “The cars do not need to be painted exactly the right shade. It is sufficient that the colour is close enough,” said Paarnio.