The UK COVID lockdowns ensured high trial and penetration for food delivery, but by 2022 the market had plateaued and almost returned back to pre-Covid levels of order frequency (fig 1).

Uber Eats lagged behind Just Eat and Deliveroo in Preference - especially amongst our ‘source of growth’ audiences: 25-34-year-old young professionals and 35-44 middle-income families. These groups had high disposable income and were living incredibly pressured, busy lives during their ‘Mad Years’ (fig 2) but had a lower preference for Uber Eats.

We couldn’t depend on the category’s deep history of promo offers, we needed to find a different reason people would prefer Uber Eats.

The data showed ‘Weekend Treat’ was the key consumption moment for takeaways (the vast majority of orders placed on or near the weekend). But amongst all the data, we found our needle in a haystack. One of the strongest emotions associated with takeaways in the UK is laziness (fig 3). This was the ‘taboo’ in the category that no one ever dared address. Everything was always about helping you be more productive and achieve more.

Our true creative challenge was that people in their Mad Years saw us as a ‘Lazy Indulgence’. And unless that were to change, we would struggle finding growth.

The nation was facing an epidemic of pressure to be productive. From time-saving hacks to making every second count, we’re bombarded with reminders that the goal is always to achieve more, more, more. Our Mad Years audience felt the endless pressure of to-do lists, laundry, cooking every meal, planning the week, building a career, watching the latest thing everyone is talking about, and somehow fitting in 8 hours of sleep a night.

Wouldn’t we all be a little bit happier if we did a little… less?

So, in a world where hustle culture dominates, we wanted to shift perceptions of food delivery standing for a lazy indulgence to food delivery providing customers a much-needed downtime from life's hecticness. We decided to own and reframe the category taboo of ‘laziness’. We shined a light on the simple enjoyment of occasionally doing less.

The campaign idea was rooted in reframing laziness and making downtime an art form. More specifically, the art of doing less. All while Uber Eats effortlessly delivered you what you needed.

We created a visually stunning campaign designed to celebrate the unique, strange and wonderful ways we each like to enjoy our downtime. While everyone else in the category had executions full of hyperactive energy, adding to category noise, we chose to slow the pace.

We launched our new brand platform in October 2022, ‘Embrace the art of doing less’ with three hero films, each urging people to enjoy a little downtime with slower, cinematic storytelling that drew you in from a busy adbreak.

We supported this with social films designed for the weird and wonderful while you’re scrolling on a channel typically associated with downtime, and minimalist OOH executions that was playful in copy and tone.