UBER used their data to find the most common unisex name in the country…Sam.

Everyone knows a Sam. Uber’s data showed ‘Sam’ in all its variations. Sam, Samantha, Samir, Samuel, Sameer. There was even someone called Samwise that wasn’t even the guy from the Lord of the Rings. The list goes on and on. There were literally thousands of them.

So to create a trusted voice, we offered every Sam in the country free Uber rides for a whole week – creating ‘Sambassadors’. Any questions they had, could be easily answered through their use of Uber for the week.

And of course, in turn, if anyone has any questions about Uber, they can just ask their mate Sam.

Uber used their data to identify the most common Unisex name in New Zealand. The campaign was tightly targeted to Sam’s around the country. We targeted anyone called Sam (or some variation of it) on Facebook and other social platforms. We also sent direct mails to anyone in Uber’s database called Sam.

In New Zealand we saw…

• 35% increase in weekly rider sign ups (New Zealand)

• 3,137 Sambassadors recruited (note New Zealand is a relatively small country)

• 5 million media impressions

• 40,000 social media comments

It was so successful it spread to Australia. Which saw…

• 60 million media impressions

• 100,185 extra bookings in just 3 weeks

• 13,629 Sambassadors recruited

This was Uber’s most successful social and earned media campaign ever (Australia and New Zealand).