Lyft - MORE THAN A RIDE CAMPAIGN

Lyft tasked NEON to create and launch their first ever marketing campaign. Needing to bolster ridership in select cities, while at the same time gaining a bigger marketshare over Uber, Lyft needed help in defining a market strategy and then executing that strategy.

The Problem:

Lyft and Uber are mostly similar across key products. They are hired to do similar things, have similar expectations about cost and efficiency and the user experience is relatively the same.

So, how do you create a marketing strategy that differentiates between the two? That drives loyalty, appeal, and trial?

Interestingly all we had to do was look at why these companies do business. More importantly we had to look at who Lyft serves and why they serve them. But first we had to look at Uber. Uber is increasingly painted with the brush of 'disrupter of inefficient markets. That is, it's purpose is to break the monopoly of the global taxi industry. People understand this in the context of the massive amount of money Uber will make if it can break this monopoly.

On the other hand, Lyft isn't positioned as a greedy market disrupter. It's purpose is to give friendly people (drivers) the opportunity to help friendly neighbors (passengers) get to work, get home safely from social events, and even to bring their kids home when one or the other parent is busy. In this respect Lyft is guided by a need to serve the community rather than be a market buster or worse yet a greedy investor driven company. 

The Answer:

Recognizing Uber's achilles heel offered Lyft the opportunity to usurp them in local communities across America. Lyft is the peoples choice taxi. By the people for the people. Lyft, is more than just a ride.

The campaign concept took real Lyft drivers from local communities and made them the stars of the ads. We wanted locals to be able to actually recognize the drivers in the ads as well create a sense of trust and loyalty from the simple backstories of interesting things these real drivers did when they weren't driving for Lyft.

Target locally:

In order to maximize spend efficiency we utilized online geo-targeted banner ads, mobile and local website content development based on the areas social activities. 

Identify Key Targets:

We wrapped each cities transit buses and trains in order to appeal to potential new Lyft users.

Local Partnerships:

In order to help get fans home we partnered Lyft with local Major League Baseball teams and built customized giveaways and packages for fans attending games.

The Art: