By 2020, the Online Food Delivery category was maturing and growth slowing. As market leader, Uber Eats needed to find new sources of growth beyond its existing heartland audience of urban young professionals, where penetration had almost peaked. Suburban families not only represented the last opportunity for growth, but are higher value customers with larger average ‘basket sizes.’

The problem was, families didn’t think it was a ‘brand for them,’ in part due to the deliberate way the brand’s ‘Tonight, I’ll be Eating’ creative platform had been developed to appeal to a younger audience, who have a very different relationship with the category.

This gave us a clear brief for 2021 brand marketing - Evolve the ‘Tonight, I’ll be eating…’ brand campaign to appeal to families (whilst not alienating our heartland audience).

Objectives -

- Build brand affinity with families.

- $0.50 increase in average 'basket value' from family orders.

Building on the 'Tonight, I'll be eating..' campaign, we created a new member of iconic Australian kids band, The Wiggles, who every parent has a love-hate relationship with, having endured years of their annoyingly over-the-top enthusiasm and nursery rhymes on repeat. So to tap into this parental tension, our new Wiggle was the antithesis of their colourful optimism. In fact, he was decidedly Grey and grumpy - played by one of the World's biggest snarks, Simon Cowell.

Across an integrated campaign,The Grey Wiggle rejects their optimism and smiles with unadulterated cynicism. He refuses to sing the Uber Eats order. He paints the house grey. He won't share.

This was a hilariously exaggerated version of family takeaway-night drama, also highlighting the role a shared meal can play in bridging those differences.

Media was booked to align with shared family moments e.g. during movie ad-breaks, across an AFL partnership and at cinemas.

Our strategy needed to shift brand perceptions that Uber Eats is ‘for families’ in a way that was consistent with the culture-hacking and disruptive approach we'd built the brand and creative idea with.

Our insight that 'on takeaway night, parents care more about everyone enjoying the shared occasion than about enjoying the actual food themselves', led to the central campaign thought that: Sharing an Uber Eats meal can bridge family differences.

This strategic focus helped us maximise the earned potential of the Grey Wiggle concept across a 16 week campaign that had multiple 'earned' moments, each of which was designed to hack culture and continue building the storyline 'episodically'. This included a launch with several broadcast exclusives, PR activations and an ongoing drumbeat of organic content.

In terms of media outreach, the strategy focused on targeting publications which would reach our core target audience - families.

The campaign was built around a single, central idea, which was then executed across a 360, national brand campaign that ran for 16 weeks across every channel (TV, OOH, radio, online video, digital, social, sports sponsorships, media integrations, influencer content, PR).

Content was created bespoke for each channel, with the central storyline of the Grey Wiggle rolling out episodically across the 16 weeks, with fresh content and executions being released throughout - all based on the ‘world’ and characters we created as part of the central idea.

Media was booked to align with shared family moments. For example, during ad breaks in movies, across AFL properties via a partnership and at the cinema.

We also built visual links between Uber Eats and shareable family favourites, with ‘craveable food’ communications featuring shareable family meals.

Market-level testing was conducted, with control cities where the campaign didn’t run, allowing us to isolate the impact our work had and exclude any covid-lockdown-related effects. Heralded “the most effective brand campaign to date across Uber Eats APAC”, (Data and Measurement Scientist, Uber Eats Marketing) the 16 week campaign delivered…

Business metrics

1.1 million incremental orders

$32 million incremental revenue

An average of $1.20 increased basket size (more than twice the original objective)

104% increase in ‘group orders’

Creative performance

Top messaging take-out (68%): ‘Uber Eats brings families together’

90% ad awareness (+9% vs previous best benchmark)

+11pts consideration after watching ads

+20pts brand preference after watching ads

+16pts purchase intent after watching ads

40.3 million earned reach