BlaBlaCar, a long-distance ridesharing community, has become the most notorious sharing economy company in Spain. After putting in place a proactive corporate communications and media relations plan, which focused on Blablacar’s positive attributes (cost savings, sociability, sustainability, free use), the scenario shifted overnight with the small company facing critical issues such as: accusations of unfair competition from the National Bus Association (March), alarming messages by the Government regarding potential illegality (June), the appearance of new competitors that Blablacar needed to differentiate from (June) and the introduction of a paid model versus a previously free system (from September on). We helped BlaBlaCar use the situation to its advantage by turning every issue into an opportunity, enhancing and clarifying the company’s core messages. Because of that, BlaBlaCar went from being a relatively unknown company, to becoming a popular one with a spectacular increase in users in just one year. The huge and positive coverage has helped turn BlaBlaCar from just a brand into a concept: “To do a BlaBlaCar”.

We presented the human stories: Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid fans sharing cars travelling to Lisbon to go to the Champions League final.

When suggestions of illegality were made by the Government, we issued a statement clarifying why the service was legal. The proactive media strategy, including interviews in the main national media, online and social media (BlaBlaCar was trending topic on Twitter for three days!), got the Government to publicly admit in just a few hours that car sharing is legal.

The shift to a paying model when booking shared rides was gradually introduced - every interview explained the benefits for the users. The taxi strike in Barcelona against the launch of Uber was leveraged to differentiate BlaBlaCar’s positioning. The overwhelming presence of BlaBlaCar in the media, the popularity and the spirit of sharing came together and created a new concept: “To do a BlaBlaCar” =to save money travelling.

Headlines in the media on the new Blablacar concept include:

• “The Catalan National Assembly improvises a BlaBlaCar”

• “Would you like to do a BlaBlaCar with Esperanza Aguirre (politician)?”

• “Shipper, the BlaBlaCar of the package”

A humoristic drawing read “Mum, wait for me for dinner because I´ve booked a ‘BlaBlaTank’ online!”

Even the Spanish group "Los chicos del maiz" included on his last album a reference to BlaBlaCar in one or their songs: "as to do a BlaBlaCar with Carromero driving”.

The sharing economy company most notorious in Spain, “far more than Uber or AirBnb” (external survey)

-More than 5,000 pieces of media coverage including BlaBlaCar messages

-The campaign obtained 850,187,535 media impressions

-ROI: investment has increased 787%

-More than 100 impacts directly managed in all the relevant national TV and radio channels in 2014, in which spokespeople and platforms users have participated. Spain: fastest growth market in Europe.