2021 Brand Experience & Activation

UBER HEETCH

Short List
TitleUBER HEETCH
BrandHEETCH
Product/ServiceHEETCH
Category G02. Challenger Brand
Entrant MARCEL Paris, FRANCE
Idea Creation MARCEL Paris, FRANCE
Additional Company HEETCH Paris, FRANCE
Credits
Name Company Position
Teddy Pellerin Heetch Co-founder & CEO
Mathieu Jacob Heetch Co-founder & CPO
Aylic Petit Heetch Co-founder & CTO
Hector Gruyer Heetch Creative Director
Antoine Clémenceau Heetch Brand Director
Tarik Tatihi Heetch Marketing Director
Benjamin Sousa Heetch Marketing Manager
Pascal Nessim Marcel CO-CEO
Charles Georges-Picot Marcel CO-CEO
Anne De Maupeou Marcel CCO Publicis France
Youri Guerassimov Marcel Exécutive Creative Director
Gaëtan du Peloux Marcel Executive Creative Director
Théophile Robaglia Marcel Art Director
Joseph Rozier Marcel Copywriter
Claire Bouzigues Marcel Junior Art Director
Salomé Becquard Marcel Junior Art Director
Lisa Videau Marcel Junior Copywriter
Sebastien Jauffret Marcel Associate Director
Yani Oukid Marcel Account Director
Ghislain Tenneson Marcel Chief Strategic Officer
Christophe Gillon Marcel Layout
Suzanne Pereira Dias Marcel Print Producer
Manon Lapeyre Marcel Production Director
Sveva Rossino Marcel Producer
Pierre Le Goff Marcel Photographer

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

Putting Heetch, a French ride-hailing app, on the map of its main competitor clients. This is what this campaign is all about. To convince Uber users of choosing Heetch for their next rides, we have hijacked Uber Eats brand experience into our own: Uber Heetch.

Background

With cheaper rides, better-paid drivers and 100% of taxes paid in France, Heetch is the fair alternative to Uber in France. Unfortunately, this message is hard to get noticed as Uber is absolutely everywhere. With a very limited budget (15,000 euros) and no media budget, we needed to think about a campaign that will create enough noise to raise awareness around Heetch. A campaign that will convey the brand vision as well as its will to fight against its giant leader.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

How do you challenge a ubiquitous competitor like Uber when you are a French ride-hailing app with no budget? By hijacking their food delivery service, turning it into our own media, and having our competitor delivering straight to their audience all the reasons they should switch to Heetch. We transformed Uber Eats into Uber Heetch. The first Uber service that delivers its competitor's ads. We printed our messages on more than 12,000 meal boxes. Then we offered those boxes to popular restaurants on Uber Eats app. And voila! Our competitor just had to deliver our ads. The messages printed on the boxes: “We too are hungry, but not for our drivers’ money.” “What about taxes, delivered in France or abroad?” “We won’t make you change your favourite meal. Just your ride-hailing app.” “Eat American style, move French style.” “Your pizzeria pays its taxes in France. Why not your ride-hailing app?”

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber's CEO said that: "The current strategy at Uber is to significantly increase the percentage of our monthly active consumers who use both of our offerings (Uber and Uber eats)" Our strategy was therefore simple: by reaching Uber Eats consumers, we had very good chances of reaching Uber users as well.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

We started by identifying the right restaurants that were willing to follow us and we built the operation with them: What would be the best packaging, which formats were the most popular, which boxes would be the most adapted for each message etc... Then we printed 12,000 meal boxes according to all French food standards and each restaurant secretly received the boxes that would match the food they were selling. All they had to do was wait for the D-day to start to use our packaging for all the orders they would receive from the Uber Eats app. And so, it began on the evening of Sunday 21st March, the night of the week when Uber Eats is most active, until they all ran out few days later.

List the results (30% of vote)

+ 23% brand preference +8% intent to try and 7,8 million media impressions with 0€ media invested, we succeeded in putting Heetch on the map. Taking the lead on the leader of the category to express our vision by allowing consumer to ask themselves the right questions and realize that riding with Heetch is a better choice for everyone.

Please tell us about how the work challenged / was different from the brands competitors

It was the first time a brand hijacked the Uber ecosystem to make them promote their competitor straight to their audience.