Cannes Lions

Be Honest

SPECIAL, Los Angeles / UBER EATS / 2024

Awards:

1 Bronze Cannes Lions
1 Shortlisted Cannes Lions
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Film
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Overview

Entries

Credits

Overview

Background

SITUATION

Uber Eats were set to launch ‘Don’t Forget Uber Eats’, which featured stars “forgetting” their famous pasts - playing with collective memories to prove that Uber Eats now delivers so much it’s impossible to remember it all, unless you forget something else. We needed to find a way to tease the campaign that would cut through the industry’s celebrity-laden fight for attention, and create outsized reach, engagement and conversation for Uber Eats.

BRIEF

While a teaser brief can sound simple, it’s incredibly challenging to deliver true results against. Not only to cut through peak competitive noise, but most “ads for an ad” speak to the industry, with little impact on culture. Our challenge was creating a teaser that truly fueled social virality and cut through, to create cultural conversation for Uber Eats, driving unprecedented attention for our campaign.

OBJECTIVES

Social & PR earned impressions, views, shares

Reach & engagement

Idea

BE HONEST, WHO CAN FORGET A ROLLS ROYCE?

Rather than competing with advertising noise, we turned the cultural zeitgeist into attention for Uber Eats, launching through the most talked-about entertainment hit of the time: THAT viral docuseries exchange between David and Victoria Beckham. The surprisingly self-deprecating humour saw the Beckhams become the internet’s surprise comedy stars. As the internet buzzed with conversation on the charming moment, we acted in real time seizing the cultural momentum, transforming the burgeoning conversation into an unignorable teaser for our campaign, taking Posh’s meme-worthy moment of conveniently ‘forgetting’ her posh roots and reinventing it to launch the campaign.

FUELING FANDOMS & CREATING CONVERSATION

We didn’t simply mimic the meme, but created a new interpretation that told our own story - this time, the Beckhams forgot literally every detail of the campaign they were there to announce - creating unprecedented earned brand conversation and attention.

Strategy

A TEASER THAT GENUINELY EXCITES

To reach a mass audience and create an earned interest spike ahead of the campaign reveal, we needed to offer more than a campaign trailer - instead creating genuine entertainment value, timed perfectly to the cultural moment.

REAL TIME RESPONSE, PLACING UBER EATS AT THE CENTER OF THE CULTURAL HEAT

The critical factor in this was timing. With the docuseries exchange gaining virality in our final stages of production, we acted in real time to meet the moment, redeveloping concepts in the days before shooting, creating something that truly spoke to culture as it was happening.

EARNING OUR MEDIA

We launched simultaneously to press and David & Victoria’s social channels. The two fueled each other, maximising impact in the first 24 hours. From there, consumers became our media - sharing, reposting and boosting the launch content, ultimately delivering 1.7B+ earned impressions.

Execution

Social engagement was a critical factor in the creative process from the beginning (May 2023) - with the aim to engineer a launch with outsized impact. While this planning was central throughout the process, this teaser became a case study in reinventing those plans when a prime cultural opportunity presents itself.

Approaching our shoot, we recognized a unique opportunity to capitalize on the mounting virality of the docu-series moment. Seizing the opportunity, we developed new creative just before shooting, reformulating our plan and putting the real-time response as the centerpiece for campaign launch.

Every detail was designed to maximize talkability - from the precision of our opening exchange, to Victoria’s t-shirt (which went on to sell out) to launching simultaneously to press and social to the Beckhams’ fervent fanbases - delivering 30M+ engagements on Victoria’s post in just 24 hours, and creating a global news cycle for Uber Eats.

Outcome

A US LAUNCH THAT BECAME A GLOBAL PHENOMENON

Put simply, the response was explosive. The launch saw immediate, global impact - an unprecedented response that dominated social feeds and news cycles globally.

The first 24 hours saw it dominate social feeds the world over - with:

30M+ unique engagements on Victoria’s Instagram post alone

50M+ organic unique views

100K+ consumer shares or reposts (organic)

Trended on every major platform

In press, it earned 1000+ pieces of coverage and 100+ unique broadcast features across at least 12 countries. Coverage exceeded all benchmarks - with features from broadcast news to cultural commentary to tabloids - including ABC, CNN, E!, Forbes, Esquire, Hola!, PEOPLE, Time Magazine, TODAY, Vulture, Vogue (US/UK/France), Vanity Fair, OK!, and hundreds more.

In all, the launch delivered 1.7B earned impressions, making the Beckham teaser more talked about, shared and seen than even the most popular Super Bowl commercials.

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