In 2017 Uber faced a storm of rising competition, allegations around corporate behavior and a red card for the company’s founder. Favorability dropped to its lowest level-ever.

Uber’s solutions included changing its CEO, starting programs to address driver satisfaction and defining a clear purpose.

Amid a back drop of fake news and political uncertainty, our challenge in 2018 was to bring back trust in a once loved brand by conveying the big shifts it was making in behavior.

Uber needed forgiveness for its corporate failings. Because without forgiveness our customers wouldn’t listen to the steps it was taking to make a better company.

To be forgiven, we had to regain credibility, and to do that we had to be transparent, open the doors of Uber and take people on the journey of reinvention with us.

When we tested messaging approaches, we realized people were more influenced by an emotional appeal from real people vs. plain facts.

Our core insight was that Uber needed to appeal to the emotional side of the brain, not the rational one.

We would develop a content led messaging strategy only featuring people and placed in the most powerful media moments for forgiveness.

Our strategy would focus on powerful moments, using real people and the authentic voices to rebuild the brand’s place in culture and make users fall back in love with the brand.

We demonstrated a clear commitment to change at scale in every one of our 300 US cities outlined through storytelling partnerships and authoritative voices of Uber driving partners and head office workers.

We targeted moments of heighted emotion in our riders’ lives, with the Uber CEO demonstrating how new tools and services made Uber travel more secure.

We regained Uber’s place in culture during Basketball’s All-Star Weekend, where we would not just be part of the on-court action but also get two legends of the game, Lebron James and Kevin Durant to discuss pivotal cultural topics around race and politics – in the back of an Uber.

Regaining Uber’s place in culture: To target the emotional passions of basketball fans, we replicated their behavior during the three days of the All-Star Weekend, moving across to second screens and social media in the ad break, before capitalizing on post-game hype in highlights and premium YouTube.

Targeting moments of heightened emotion in our riders’ lives: We reached them on TV during moments of sporting tension and during shows that allow people to dream such as American Idol and The Voice. We also hit environments for storytelling – passion Podcasts such as Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History.

Demonstrating long-term commitment to change:

Distributed on Facebook were three docu-style videos of artists and entrepreneurs highlighting new product features reinforced our message while articles and video clips on The Atlantic featured voices from inside the company.

This was backed by national, product-led OOH, sequential social and video

We’ve changed the conversation around Uber. It’s no longer perceived as a toxic brand and the business is thriving.

Our content was watched extensively with 31% VTR on YouTube, almost double benchmark, 92% completion rate on ESPN.com, above 82% benchmark, 36% CTR on Facebook, far above 7% benchmark, and 47% VCR on Twitter, above 23% benchmark.

Independent tracking found a 70% increase in brand love by the end of the campaign, and brand favorability of Uber reached its highest level - ever.

Riders now believe that Uber is a company going in the right direction:

• “Right Direction” +15%;

• “Strong Leadership” + 12%;

• “Owns Mistakes” +11%; and

• “Cares about Customers” +6%.

But most importantly, the brand continues to grow, with more people taking Ubers every day in the US.