Gojek is a small player in the crowded ride-sharing market of Singapore, where competition is focused on touting discounts upon discounts. This means there's a lack of clear differentiation, with brands constantly jostling for customers’ preference and loyalty.

The brand’s main challenge revolves around awareness and consideration, in particular with people 18-30 y-o, who are responsible for 68% of our bookings. And we take any and every opportunity we get to address it. This year, Gojek struck a partnership with Resorts World Sentosa for their yearly, and Southeast Asia’s biggest, halloween event at Universal Studios: “Halloween Horror Nights”. The event would run for a bit over a month.

This was our opportunity to connect the brand with this beloved time of the year for Singaporeans by helping Gojek truly own Halloween 2022.

Singaporeans love ghost and horror stories. Especially during Halloween.

Luckily, we knew just where to find them: often driving late into the night, Gojek drivers have seen things they can’t unsee and experienced things they can’t forget. Scary? Well, that’s just what people were looking for on Halloween.

So we asked our driver community to submit their scariest encounters and experiences behind the wheel, selected 12 of the best ones, helped them edit and proofread them, and invited the drivers in to record these stories, creating the first podcast serial of a completely new horror sub-genre: ride-hailing horror.

From indelible encounters (i.e.: distorted figures in the night) to mind-bending happenings (i.e.: a dead-end road... that has no end) and unexplainable sightings (i.e.: ghost passengers), the Drivers’ Spooky Stories podcast had something for every taste. No matter how questionable.

Our initial task was to correlate Halloween to the riding experience. Scary experiences are great on the screen and at an event like Universal Studios’ “Halloween Horror Nights”. But not on the road. That’s the last place you want to feel goosebumps or your heart racing.

This led to the messaging that anchored this entertainment piece: “This Halloween, avoid road scares. Ride safely with Gojek.” However, the messaging is only part of the solution.

The ride-hailing experience relies on two central pillars: the experience with the platform and the experience with the ride. Drivers play a crucial role in driving customers’ perception of the ride and, consequently, the brand. So we knew our solution to the brief had to involve our drivers and get them to connect with riders. If riders were more appreciative of our drivers, there was a higher chance they would consider us for their next trip.

We asked our drivers to submit their scariest encounters and experiences behind the wheel. From over 300 submissions, we selected the 12 most horrifying ones, helped them edit and proofread them, and invited the drivers in to record these stories, creating the first podcast serial of a completely new horror sub-genre: ride-hailing horror. The podcast is still live on Spotify.

But we didn’t stop there.

We pushed the story through local media outlets, generating initial buzz and conversation around the podcast.

We leveraged all our owned channels to pull people into the idea: from EDM to posts on social media and even creating a special easter egg in our app which connect people’s destinations with a podcast episode that took place at that location! *gulp*

And we took over OOH across the city to advertise the podcast and its episodes, strategically placing episode communication around locations where it took place.

By simply giving our drivers the stage (and working with them to craft their stories into audible perfection), Gojek was able to create content that was enticing, relevant, and made audience stand at the edge of their seat.

With an extremely low budget of only SGD$13000 (USD$9700) the campaign reached over 100,000 listeners, garnering over 2 million media impressions in a country of just over 5 million people.

By using the entertainment medium of podcast, we were able to connect with our audiences in wholly unique way during the Halloween period and get more Singaporeans to not only appreciate our brand, but also use it during this season.