We created an ad-funded miniseries called 'Where To, Britain?', diving behind the scenes of Uber drivers and journeys to help turn brand perceptions around.
Uber: Where To, Britain?
The Big Idea
Every day, people all over the UK take a ride in an Uber. But it’s fair to say Uber has experienced bumps in the road over the last few years in the UK, and due to a number of concerns they famously lost their licence in London.
The brief was simple: to get people to trust Uber again and reframe people’s perceptions of Uber drivers. Trust was a key barrier to consideration amongst prospective riders, drivers and the broader support of the public. This was epitomised in people’s misperception of drivers, who they assumed were exploited and unsafe.
The strategy was to humanise their drivers and champion Uber as a familiar part of British culture, aiming to build trust in Uber, their drivers and their service. They therefore chose to partner with Channel 4 as a well-loved, innovative content provider, to tell everyday stories of the many journeys happening across the country in Ubers.
The challenge was to create genuine TV editorial content that viewers found enjoyable and entertaining whilst at the same time restoring trust in Uber, bringing out the personalities of the drivers and relating to the passengers.
We are really proud of this campaign - Where to, Britain? has helped change people’s perception of people driving for Uber, helping us start to rebuild trust in the brand and service. We love the fact we have achieved this by showing, not telling people how great drivers are. The good news is that we have seen the right metrics start to move, which is in large part down to the success of this show, along with the other broader efforts we are making as a business.” – Mark Paterson, Head of Marketing UKI, Uber
Making it Happen
Working closely with the agency Gravity Road, we created Where to Britain?, a series that followed some of Britain’s Uber drivers as they picked up and dropped off passengers across 6 UK cities. Offering an entertaining peek into life inside the many daily Uber journeys around the UK complete with a patchwork variety of interesting characters and candid confessions of drivers and their passengers, the result was an engaging, warm and insightful snapshot of Britain in transit.
Where to, Britain? was a 6 x 6 minute fixed rig series launched in May 2018 on All 4. Our shared ambition between with Uber to create compelling editorial rather than advertising was perfectly matched in this campaign. There were even some surprising twists: the series featured everyday people with their varied stories but some celebrities were involved too, including 3 Manchester United players travelling from a training session!
Our Channel 4 stamp was fundamental to the credibility of the campaign, thanks to our reach as a reputable national broadcaster, and our progressive values. This association enabled the Uber brand to tap into our trusted and forward-facing brand equity, all key to the objectives of this campaign.
53% of viewers
felt more positively about Uber after watching the series
Half of taxi users
in our research are more positive about Uber drivers as a direct result of Where to, Britain?
The Results
Where to, Britain? produced brilliant results for Uber!
•53% of viewers felt more positively about Uber after watching the series, up from 35%
•Half of taxi users in our research are more positive about Uber drivers as a direct result of Where to, Britain?
•1 in 4 were persuaded to use Uber’s services after watching the series, versus the Core4 ad-funded programming norm of 11%, and even better, they were 55% more likely to agree that Uber has trustworthy and safe drivers
•The series had massive reach with 85.1 million views of the content across all platforms, and a completion rate of 82% on All 4 – the 2nd most All 4 original series of 2018!
