Ub(er)iquitous

“The best brands become verbs,” according to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

It’s a simple statement—but stop and think about it for a moment. 

There are only a few organizations or products that transcend their grammatical titles and are able to be included in a sentence like this: 
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• I Ubered to the mall where
• I Googled some photos of cats 
• I Photoshopped them with shark bodies attached
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Can you think of the others? Tinder? Facetime? Skype? 

The point is: these products and services are intertwined so closely with our daily lives, they have become a part of our language. Google is already in the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb...Uber could be next.
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The Wave of ‘Uberfication’
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Uber exploded onto the transportation scene a decade ago and disrupted how the world commuted. Since its inception, industries across the planet have been ‘Uberfied.’ 

From hotel rooms to groceries, to private jets, Uber inspired the world to provide more convenient and affordable services for everyone. 

Of all the services undergoing change, the most hotly contested sector is likely restaurant food delivery. There are several major international players, including Uber’s own Uber Eats, and numerous regional niche players.  

As it currently stands, there is a war raging for consumer consideration.  
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#Paid & Uber—Allies in War 
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Competition on the food delivery battlefield is fierce. You need an ally watching your back.

Marketing teams within these industries are pressed to innovate and refine scalable tactics to drive value. Content needs to be curated and created, but it also must reach the right audience with the strategy and speed to ensure it remains relevant. 

It was this need for a quick and versatile ally that brought Uber Eats and #paid together.
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“For us, it’s all about delivering the biggest possible impact on the business. #paid’s promise of a cost-effective platform that would massively cut down the time to launch, administer, and scale influencer campaigns got our attention. In the hunt for step-changes, it was an opportunity we couldn’t ignore.” 

— Britt Doll, Sr. Marketing Manager. ‍

A Smooth Product Delivery‍

When the time came to combine forces, #paid’s direct-to-consumer platform caught the attention of Uber’s marketing team. The platform provided the technology to quickly match Uber with creators who were passionate about their brand. Unlike influencers, creators can leverage meaningful connections with the right audience and drive Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS). 
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“Creating a solution for the DTC market was a critical step in the evolution of #paid. Creators are perfectly suited to serving the needs of lean marketing teams that are digitally savvy and obsessed with optimizing their return on ad spend (ROAS).  We couldn’t have been happier when Uber Eats expressed interest in being one of our first customers to trial the solution”  

— Phil Jacobson 

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‍Testing the DTC Platform‍
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In order to get a feel for the #paid platform, Uber Eats cooked up a delicious campaign to promote quick delivery times and their partnership with McDonald’s.

How does an organization prove they are the fastest and most reliable food delivery service? Well...delivering the ice-cream McFlurry during the hottest months of the summer is a bold start. 

With the help of #paid Creators, Uber Eats coordinated a detailed campaign to take care of the heavy lifting. That way, Uber Eats could focus on what they do best: seamless food delivery. ‍
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The Strength and Speed of an Alliance ‍
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How long do you think it took for Uber Eats to plan their #paid campaign? A couple of days? Maybe a couple of weeks or even months? A campaign like this could easily take that long or longer without the streamlining and automation of the #paid platform. ‍
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“We launched a campaign in under 10 minutes and [in no time at all] got to choose from an authentic roster of creators that were a perfect fit for our brand.” 

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The quick launch time and strong brand-creator fit was made possible by #paid’s Campaign Launch Tool and its creator Handraise technology.

Using the Campaign Launch Tool, the Uber Eats team inputted their campaign parameters in ten minutes or less. From location and budget data to more detailed information such as their brand guidelines, everything important was covered in the brief.

Once the information was inputted into the system, the Creator Handraise Algorithm worked its magic and searched #paid’s creator network. The algorithm identified creators who matched with the desired aesthetic, tone and content categories Uber Eats was looking for. 

Most importantly, these creators were fans of the brand and were invited to describe their creative vision for the campaign. In the case of Uber Eats, that meant matching the brand with food, fashion, and lifestyle creators who regularly used Uber Eats and also enjoyed McDonald’s.

In addition, the seamless automation of workflow combined with access to a dedicated Customer Success Manager helped ensure smooth product delivery and testing for the tech giant. 
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Organic Content and Whitelisting Hits the Battlefield 

With a diverse roster of creators built for Uber Eats, the organic phase of the campaign was launched. Creators produced and submitted dynamic content to the Uber Eats team, who were able to quickly review and approve submissions with a click of a button.

Once creators shared the content with their followers, we enabled Paid Social Whitelisting—a feature that allows brands to run their creator content directly through the creator’s handle.  

This is a feature unique to #paid and has converted 3x better than ads running through brand handles. In fact, brands can push creator content right into Facebook ad manager from #paid, another level of integration that benefits the client tremendously. 

That’s just one of the many secrets to driving better ROAS. Well, it’s not a secret anymore. 

Best of all, thanks to the automation of all key campaign management tasks such as payments and rights management, the project was accomplished with minimal need for input from the team at Uber Eats. 
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“Oftentimes managing these things take up so much time.  You find yourself writing 5 emails to get something simple solved with agencies.  With #paid it takes minutes.  I never worried about anything.  #paid makes everything so easy.”

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Two Allies, Over One Million Impressions

The campaign was a major win for Uber Eats. It set a high bar on the battlefield for food delivery supremacy as competitors were forced to take notice. 

The 37 pieces of unique content that were produced during the campaign resulted in more than 1.5 million impressions. This drove  “an increase in both downloads and orders” during the campaign according to Britt Doll.  

From a partnership standpoint—a major area of importance in the food delivery business—the campaign was also hugely successful said Doll, 
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“McDonald’s loved the content and how it showed different ways you could enjoy the Mcflurry.  Having creators from different categories like lifestyle and fashion made the campaign really stand out.” 

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With the campaign wrapped up like a junior chicken dressed like a Mac, the test was over, but not the partnership. Uber Eats have since increased their spending with #paid by 4x, using the platform to run campaigns for several of their highest-profile restaurant partners, like Starbucks.  

Uber may be the next word listed as a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary, but we are working hard to make sure that #paid is next. 
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“#paid is incredible. I would recommend it to any [marketing] team, especially those that are lean.  It’s an easy way to do really cool work with creators.  It doesn’t matter if you haven’t worked with influencers before, don’t know where to start, or don’t have time.  You don’t need to be an expert to work with #paid.  You can learn and grow with the platform.” 

— Britt Doll, Sr. Marketing Manager of multi-partner campaigns