Case study
Rapide App The digital launch of a ride-hailing app in Antananarivo
A ride-hailing app does not have an awareness problem at launch, it has a first-gesture problem: nobody downloads one “just to see”. We ran the digital strategy, the social presence, the content production and the Meta Ads campaign that started the first few thousand users.
The context
Rapide App arrived on the Malagasy App Store on 16 April 2025: a ride-hailing app for city dwellers in Antananarivo, with car and motorbike rides as its first service.
Launching a mobility app is not an awareness problem. It is a first-gesture problem. Nobody downloads a transport app “just to see”: you install it on the day you need it, in the street, usually in a hurry — and on that day it has to be already known, already recommended by somebody in the neighbourhood. An app with no drivers is useless, and drivers with no passengers do not stay. The launch has to prime both sides at once, and fast.
The brief therefore came down to three verbs: make the app known to the general public, trigger the first downloads, and surface the first user feedback while the product was still malleable.
What we produced
A complete digital strategy on four fronts.
A 360° approach, not an isolated campaign
Three pillars held together: social media management, content production, and paid media on Meta. Separated, each would have worked against the others — an advert pointing at a dead page does not convert, a live page nobody sees is useless. It is their simultaneity that installs a new brand in an already occupied market.
An editorial line, not a publishing calendar
We took on the whole online presence. The content was produced for a Malagasy audience and adapted format by format — posts, carousels, stories, short videos — with two registers of their own:
- tutorials explaining how to get started, because the first ride is the real obstacle, not the download;
- partner user content (UGC), because a transport service is recommended between neighbours before it is recommended in an advert.
The Meta Ads campaign
Every visual was adapted into the format that serves performance: still image, video built for mobile, or explanatory carousel when a mechanism had to be laid out. Targeting was tightened week by week and the media plan adjusted as the campaign reported its numbers — a launch has no history, it only learns by running.
Anchoring on the ground
Rapide App was official sponsor of the national e-sport event held at the Barea stadium. We relayed that presence online — promotional visuals and event stories — to make it count twice: with the crowd on site, and with a young, connected audience you do not reach through paid advertising alone.
What it changes
In one month the Facebook page went from 53 to 6,400 followers, driven mainly by the advertising campaign. The app reached first place on the Malagasy App Store in its Travel category — what the original page called “Transport / Travel”.
Both figures are our own campaign measurement, in July 2025. What happened next is not ours, but deserves saying: Rapide App went on adding services — parcel delivery, a wallet topped up by MVola and Orange Money, vehicle rental — and on 30 January 2026, Yas Madagascar built the service into its Yas & Moi app.
A launch campaign does not manufacture that kind of trajectory. It opens the window during which it becomes possible.
In figures
What the campaign produced
- 6,400
- Facebook followers in a month, from 53
- 1st
- On the Malagasy App Store, Travel category
More work
Also worth a look
Jeune Patronat de Madagascar
Jeune Patronat de Madagascar – Making a first edition feel like a fixture
The Jeune Patronat de Madagascar was launching its first major entrepreneurs' gathering. In three months Takamoa built the whole thing — identity, content, video, landing page, campaigns — and handed the stage to a host created with artificial intelligence.
Jeune Patronat de Madagascar
Jeune Patronat de Madagascar – Recruiting at the forum without flying to Paris
The Diaspora job forum brought Malagasy companies and diaspora talent together in Paris for a job-dating event. We built the platform that stretches those two days into five months, and opens them to the companies that could not make the trip.
ASA
ASA – A digital campaign for an international school
The American School of Antananarivo (ASA), known for an educational offer aligned with International Baccalaureate standards, asked Takamoa to build a full-scale digital campaign.