Through a simple yet personal story about how they moved through 2016, we connected with riders through a look at their habits and trips with Uber at yearwithuber.com. It was the industry’s first ever year-in-review campaign.

Given the pilot nature of the project, we started small, targeting five cities: Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Manila and Bangkok. All have good market penetration, high mobile usage (around 85% of working adults) and importantly, high usage of Uber as a commodity.

Using WebGL, we made sure the most relevant and interesting facts for each rider were pulled from the 1,020 data points on the fly, making each rider’s experience uniquely personal.

We visualised the collected data points; from locations and trip-lengths to city-specific references. And overlaid this data with contextual and local cultural nuances for events like Ramadan, Chinese New Year and Formula One Grand Prix - turning potentially boring data into engaging stories.

Each rider’s look at 2016 ends with a personalised calling card and 'Rider type' for them to share on social media.

Given the pilot nature of the campaign, we started small, targeting five cities: Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Manila and Bangkok.

The design was inspired by Uber’s recently refreshed look, but we took it further.

Knowing that the majority of our riders would access Year With Uber from their mobile phones, and on limited prepaid data packages, we worked hard to keep the experience light and sleek so data bandwidth for our riders was minimised without reducing the entertaining immersive experience.

Using WebGL, we made sure the most relevant and interesting facts for each rider were pulled from the 1,020 data points on the fly, making each rider’s experience uniquely personal.

We drew largely on our owned media channels: Existing email database, social platforms (Facebook, Twitter) and in-app feed cards. Shared social posts were key in organically spreading the word.

This ‘ first-of-its-kind’ project was successfully turned around in just 8 weeks.

Engagement with the experience was extremely strong. In the first week alone, we saw 974,849 site visits. Over 16,000 custom visualisations were shared socially (organic and unprompted), resulting in 4,096,839 Earned Social Impressions. As many as 115,296 individual journeys were mapped in the first 4 weeks. That’s more than 8 out of 10 logged in users who completed the experience, with an average dwell time of 1.08 minutes on the experience.

The response was overwhelmingly positive. 55% of users said they intend to ride more frequently. Many voiced their love and enthusiasm online, for example:

“The Night Rider! wtf Uber even knows my days better than my ex(es) #yearwithuber”

“Thank you @Uber for always getting me home safe #yearwithuber”

“Uber, you’re an inspiration in data storytelling used for customer delight #yearwithuber”

What started out as a pilot in 5 cities garnered interest across 195 countries, with people tweeting for the experience to be made available in their countries:

“Hurry to the US, #yearwithuber!”

“#yearwithuber in paris please”

“@Uber_HK We are waiting for #YearWithUber #comeon #hurryup”

“Hey @Uber what do you think about featuring Brazilian cities, like Belo Horizonte or Sao Paolo on #YearWithUber? Would be <3”