Picking up rides through Facebook with Uber India
Learn how well-known transportation company, Uber, used Facebook’s ad creative to boost ride bookings in India and how they managed to reach 18 million riders just through Facebook.
A business with innovation and drive at its core
Uber is one of the world's most popular transportation companies in society today. With its innovative ‘tap a button to take a trip’ process, Uber has grown from just operating in San Francisco, California, to now driving people around 633 cities across the globe. Uber is solely responsible for changing the way we travel today, by connecting people to reliable drivers in moments.
The reason for the journey
In focusing on emotive marketing methods, Uber wanted to boost their brand awareness and inevitably increase the likelihood of customers using its service. Appealing to customers who live a fast-paced lifestyle also worked for Uber as they were able to emphasise their efficiency and showcase how simple it is to hitch a ride with them.
The route to success
Uber decided to use Facebook as its main platform for the ad campaign. The campaign was designed to encourage customers in India to use their services more regularly. Using a simple theme of “Isey Apni Hi Gaadi Samjho” which translates to “think of Uber as your own car”, they developed an initiative that reached consumers with a meaningful ad creative.
Due to being such a huge company across the world, Uber was able to use its substantial customer insight to target various customer groups effectively. This then allowed them to categorise their target audiences into 25 to 35-year-olds and different genders, which ultimately produced 11 custom audiences that they could effectively target individually.
To begin their campaign, Uber designed 28 short video ads that featured relatable people using Uber throughout their daily life. Dividing their Facebook ads into two themes, building brand love and brand habit, these two themes helped strengthen customers’, also known as riders, emotions towards the business.
Their next step towards success involved the company serving each of its 11 custom audiences a different combination of the ads they had created that then reflected the most relevant scenarios to each group. Using the reach and frequency buying tool was vital for Uber to control how often their video ads were shown to each group.
A study revealed that using Facebook first within an ad campaign significantly advances the brand key metrics, such as imagery association and consideration. Due to Facebook delivering the ads cost-effectively to the highest impact on all platforms that Uber used within their campaign, it suggests that there is potential for even greater results for future campaigns, just running on Facebook alone.
Arriving at destination: success
Through the use of Facebook's tools, such as video ads and custom audiences, Uber discovered that using a Facebook-first approach to marketing is a much more effective choice that gave them incredible results overall. Uber managed to reach 18 million existing customers through Facebook alone, as well as achieving a 19-point lift in ad recall. So it’s pretty clear that the Facebook first approach works.
This blog was originally published by Facebook, to read more inspiring social success stories, click here
