Uber
the fact that this seemingly normal undecided voter asked a great question, he’s a freaking meme now. Most importantly, Ken Bone has become the momentary face of UberSelect. Whether intentional or incidental, Uber has a storied history of ride-hailing promotions, some that would make Don Draper choke on his old fashioned.
Since it’s the political season until the end of humanity as we know it, Uber is currently running a promotion to make sure you are registered to vote. Partnering with Google, Uber is making sure that all age appropriate human Americans get their names on the books as registered voters. Even though delivering kittens and puppies probably will do more for humanity than voting for a giant douche or a turd sandwich.
Maybe you don’t want to vote, that’s your right as an American. Hell, maybe you don’t even want to talk to a human to get your Uber ride to your favorite park bench to yell at the ducks. With the Uber chatbot, you can hail a ride right from Facebook Messenger. Just hope your Uber driver isn’t one of those people who just won’t shut up. Which means you’re kind of screwed if Jay Leno becomes an Uber driver again.
As anti-social as you might be, Uber knows you still need to eat. That’s why it employed little grandmas in little cottages to deliver sausages in Chicago. The “Sausage Nonnas” were then subject to tons of sausage puns before being sent back to Florida to slow down my morning commute. Would you like some ice cream with your sausage?
Sausages are just the tip of the culinary heat lamp for Uber, with its UberEats program, which appears to still be in beta in the Tampa Bay area. As a Tampa Bay area resident I can tell you this much, the best food in the area isn’t going to be delivered by a hipster in a Ford Fusion, it’s going to come out of the back of a food truck or right around the corner from the corner you are too afraid to step foot on after dark.
Wait! There’s more! Uber delivered Christmas trees on-demand, smartly removing both the axe from your stressed-out-by-in-laws hands and the squirrel from the living room. Or you could have just skipped the holidays and stayed at a Starwood hotel. Uber had a promotion for that too. It might have worked better if Tinder for Uber wasn’t just a hoax.
What wasn’t a hoax but should have been was the most audacious Uber campaign ever, hashtag #RideOfThrones. For a short time, New Yorkers could literally have a replica Iron Throne from HBO’s Game of Thrones delivered for the ultimate in contrived selfies. There was also an Iron Throne-themed pedicab, because who doesn’t want to take a slow ride in a chair that looks about as comfortable as sitting on a light-bulb?
So have all these marketing promotions benefited the ride-hailing service? While Uber has done some social good, such as its LGBT #ridewithpride campaign, according to Bloomberg Uber has lost stacks of cash this year already. Not rapper stacks, but a $1.2 billion dollar loss in the first half of 2016. Perhaps Uber might want to spend less on paying actual human memes to tout the service and y’know, just get me where I need to go without a kitten, puppy, sausage, ice cream, tree or anything that isn’t my butt in the backseat of the car.
source - forbes.com
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