Lyft hires CMO, adds new feature (Score 55)

Sales lead: The CMO hire will likely lead to increased ad spending & agency reviews.

• Lyft announced Felipe Avila will join the company as CMO.
• Avila spent the past six years as The Container Store's marketing VP. 
• He now leads all of Lyft's marketing operations. 

In other news:

• Lyft just launched a new feature called Women+ Connect.
• This matches women and nonbinary drivers with women and nonbinary riders.
• It is currently testing the feature in Chicago, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose. 

Target demographic: Millennials with a female skew

The company will likely:

• Ramp ad spend back up
• Try new ad channels
• Review its agency roster
• Continue rolling out new products & features

Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)

• YTD spend: Lyft spent about $4.6m on digital display ads YTD, a huge decrease from $26.8m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2022. 
• YTD data: 675m impressions via Facebook (62%), Instagram (35%), and YouTube (3%). 
• 2021-2022 spend: Full-year spend increased from $29m in 2021 to $33m in 2022. 
• Ad location: It placed 100% of these ads directly onto facebook.com, instagram.com, and youtube.com. 

Additional channel insights  

• Top podcasts sponsored: Stories from NPR, Marketplace, Skip and Shannon: Undisputed, All Ears English Podcast, and The Breakfast Club.