Uber Eats activated its Australian Open partnership to target Aussie tennis fans in an integrated ‘More Choice / More Than Food Delivery’ campaign titled ‘This Calls For’ which was fronted by former tennis star-turned-commentator Todd Woodbridge, current Aussie men’s star Nick Kyrgios and world number one Ash Barty and which was led by TV ads inviting fans to choose their endings on YouTube.
The campaign, which was created by Special Group with the reactive social content strand created by Hello Social, launched on 17 January to leverage the start of the 2022 tournament.
The activation ran for three weeks and spanned TV, social, online and OOH, plus reactive social content during the tennis itself. It was anchored by television ad placements during the 9Network’s broadcast of the Australian Open linked to alternate endings which live on the brand’s YouTube channel. This key strand was supported by limited outdoor billboards focused around Melbourne Park which also encourage attendees of the AO to discover the potential endings.
The campaign, was led by a series of TV ads running on official broadcaster and brand partner Channel 9.
The spots deploy Uber Eats ‘This Calls For’ proposition as a call-for-action to the tennis audience who are invited to actively decide how the ads should end – with each unique ending inspired by iconic films (such as seeing Woodbridge and Kyrgios satirise Love Actually).
Viewers are asked to choose their ending by scanning a QR code on the television commercial which will take them to YouTube where they can explore the wider advertising campaign.
The spots included 13 January’s ‘Help Solve Todd’s Vocal Predicament’ which invites viewers to click through to YouTube to choose a grocery item and decide how this story ends and ‘This Calls For… Pens’
The point of the campaign is to show that Uber Eats now delivers everywhere and anything.
“Uber has a new focus, a new direction across the company and the motto we go by is ‘go anywhere, get anything’,” said Uber Eats head of marketing David Griffiths.
Griffiths is confident the “big bold creative” angle Uber Eats has decided for 2022 “will reap rewards for us” but acknowledges asking viewers to actively engage with the campaign with the use of QR codes is a bit of a gamble.
“We know from our research, we know from our customers if you see a QR code with an Uber Eats logo next to it, you’ll want to open your phone and go on a bit of a journey,” he said.
Uber Eats objective is to reinforce the brand as the take-away platform Aussies know they can get anything they want from and the company again uses its AO sponsorship to highlight the range of products consumers can have delivered to their door and drive home messages about consumer control and choice.
The aim of the tennis led marketing push is to educate viewers that the Uber Eats platform is now much broader than it once was and that it offers more choice than rivals such as DoorDash, whilst also creating a positive consumer sentiment (partly to combat recent negative headlines around how the company has treated its drivers).
“Uber has a new focus, a new direction across the company and the motto we go by is ‘go anywhere, get anything’,” said Uber Eats Australia Head of Marketing David Griffiths. “The get anything is exactly where the Uber Eats business picks up, it straightaway sets the ambition that we have as a business for Uber Eats. These creative spots make the most of our opportunity to use our Australian Open partnership to promote what our business is looking to do and that’s transition to a platform where you can get anything.”
“If you were to stop the average person in the street halfway through last year and asked what is Uber Eats known for? It would be known for online food delivery,” continued Griffiths. “And if you fast-forward to halfway through this year – or my target, to the end of this year – if consumers talk about us as a platform where you can get anything, then that will be my job successfully done.”
The campaign was created for an Uber Eats marketing team which included Senior Director and Head Of APAC Marketing Lucinda Barlow, Marketing Director ANZ Andy Morley, Head Of Marketing Uber Eats ANZ David Griffiths, Culture Lead Josh Pickstone, Brand Lead Channa Goonasekara, Communications Lead Nick Vindin, ANZ Media Lead Louisa Chu, APAC Strategy Lead Ally Doube, APAC Social Lead Isaac Lai and Global Creative Director Viktor Jacobsson.
It was conceived and created by a team at agency Special Group consisting of CCOs Tom Martin and Julian Schreiber, APAC Creative Directors Max McKeon and Sarah Parris, Creative Directors Jade Manning and Vince Osmond, Creatives Cat Williams and Jessica Roberts, Creative Technologist Laurent Marcus, CEOs Lindsey Evans and Cade Heyde, Head Of Business Management Tori Lopez, Business Director Liam Walker, Business Manager Maddie Armstrong, Group Strategy Director Celia Garforth, Senior Strategist Kellie Box, Head Of Film Production Sevda Cemo, Executive Producer Wendy Gillies, Integrated Producer Stephanie Wilkinson, Stills Producers Sonia Ebrington and Emily Willis, Digital Producer Stacey Szabo, Casting Director Emily Stewart, Social Lead Lachlan Stewart and Social Specialist Sarah Mckie.
With reactive content and community management run by Hello Social and media by Mediacom, the production company was Scoundrel with Director James Dive, Producer Jules Shelton, DOP Danny Ruhlman. Casting was handled by i4casting Brisbane and Ben Parkinson Casting, post production by The Editors, sound by Rumble Studios, photography was The Pool Collective’s Sean Izzard.
Comment
Arguably less innovative or impressive than the brand’s previous award-winning ‘Ambush’ AO work, it is both fun, somewhat absurd and technically notable.
Uber Eats’ sponsorship of the Australian Open provides the company with a nationwide, high profile platform “to show the best of Uber Eats and to show what we’re about as a business” explained Griffiths. ““We talk about it internally as the Australian Super Bowl as it’s a moment over two weeks where we can leverage what is a well-loved property to really talk about the things that we’re doing as a business.”
Boosting brand reputation and increasing positive sentiment is a key objective for the brand in Australia in early 2022 as Uber faces legal action in Australia’s Federal Court by a group of Uber drivers which will acts as a test case for minimum pay rates and employment status in the gig economy.
Quite how this will play out in public following the Novak Djokovic visa drama which will likely have its own effect on the reputations of Tennis Australia and the Australian Open?
Uber Eats has used its partnership with the Australian Open as a major pillar of its marketing since 2019 and previous campaigns have included its 2021 ‘Tonight I’ll Be Eating For Love’ with Sacha Baron-Cohen and 2020’s work with ‘Sharon Strzelecki and Serena Williams’, as well as 2019’s award-winning TV ident ‘Tonight I’ll Be Eating’ fakes.
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.