Gen-X Opps: Uber launches campaign amid significant national TV spend increase (Score 14)

Sales Lead: Uber just launched a new campaign featuring real people behind the wheel in endearing short-form video spots.

• Made by creative AOR Johannes Leonardo, "Earn Like a Boss" encourages viewers to drive for Uber.
• The campaign launched nationally on April 26 across OOH, audio, social media, and various media partnerships.
• It will continue rolling out until the end of 2023.
• The campaign also includes in-language Spanish videos.
• The company will likely:
  • ​​​​​​​Keep rolling out new work
  • Continue increasing national TV spend
  • Return to higher digital spend
  • Seek new agency partners
• Target demographic: 
  • ​​​​​​​Gen-X

Additional spending insights:

• Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: So far this year, Uber has spent approximately $1.4m on national TV commercials, a huge increase from the approximately $2.3k spent within the same 2022 timeframe.
  • Last year: The company spent around $1.5m on this channel last year after spending much more, around $16.9m, in 2021.
  • 2023 ad programming: Uber's 2023 commercials have targeted Gen-X watching shows such as The Masked Singer, 9-1-1, The Voice, Chicago Med, and Next Level Chef.
• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: The company has allocated roughly $15.1m toward digital ads YTD, down 22% from the roughly $19.3m allocated by this point last year.
  • YTD data: Since the beginning of 2023, Uber has earned ~1.6b digital impressions via YouTube (42%), Instagram (25%), desktop display (16%), Facebook (11%), Twitter (3%), and desktop video (3%) ads.
  • Last year: In 2022, the company's estimated full-year spend of $66.9m reached only about half of that of $128.1m in 2021.
• Additional channel insights  
  • The company utilizes digital, local broadcast, OOH, radio, Google Ads, and online video (primarily via Youtube.com) ads.
  • Uber sponsors podcasts such as The School of Greatness, The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Matt Walsh Show, the Last Podcast On The Left, and the Adam Carolla Show.
  • It also invests in short-form DRTV.
    • Uber has very highly concentrated network TV coverage and will not likely launch a new campaign soon.
    • NBCS is the company's top TV network.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: If you haven't yet done so, get in touch to offer media, PR, experiential, multicultural, influencer, digital analytics, and/or social media management services.
  • ​​​​​​​We have not heard of any additional roster shifts since Johannes Leonardo became Uber's creative AOR a year ago.
• Current agency roster:
  • ​​​​​​​Johannes Leonardo: Creative AOR (May 2022)
  • R/GA: Creative, digital, and social AOR
  • EssenceMediacom: Media AOR
  • MediaMonks: Creative and digital agency partner

Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix; podcast insights by Podchaser; DRTV insights by Media Analytics.