Uber had been selling train tickets through its app since 2022 - but hardly anyone had been buying them. Why would they, when Uber was for booking cars - and they were happy booking trains how they always had?

Whilst using Uber to book trains felt odd, introducing a new, unfamiliar idea is easier when you build on existing, familiar references. So, as much as Uber’s associations were a weakness, its established language, iconography and behaviours were also a strength.

So, we created a campaign introducing the unfamiliar world of trains through the familiar world of Uber.

Casting was a process of seeing the very best comic talent the UK had to offer, allowing them to riff around the clever and funny idea already written by the agency – the idea of train passengers treating the drivers as they would a private UBER cab. Whilst the core idea was written, the casting process was designed to put the finer details on the performance and personalise the language to the characters we created.

The passenger characters live in an alternate, slightly mad reality, where they believe that the train has turned up exclusively for their own benefit, and behave just as they would getting in an UBER private cab hire. Polite, lovely people, baffled by the driver’s gently confused reaction. The drivers are also polite kind people, but are being confronted by a lovably mad person who they have to deal with appropriately.

Within a week, Uber saw an +85% increase in first time Trains users, a rise of 69% in ticket sales in London and almost double the amount of ticket sales at London Waterloo, with other major stations following closely behind.