Uber was in Ukraine nearly a year, transporting people and items to safety. But how could we rally global support, without coming off boastful? And do it at a time when war-fatigue was setting globally? We knew we had to give the platform to Ukrainian drivers themselves to make this a success, and make it truly local. Which led to the next challenge: Finding a Ukrainian agency to make sure the stories on the ground were authentic and not opportunistic, for our brand or the Ukrainian people.

Situation: Uber was in Ukraine nearly a year, transporting people and items to safety. But how could we rally global support, without coming off boastful? And do it at a time when war-fatigue was setting globally?

Brief: How do we tell the stories of the unsung heroes aka the drivers in Ukraine who risked their lives to save others. How do we be in-service of these heroes beyond monetary donations, how do give them a platform to stamp their role in this historic war.

Objectives: Finding an agency that would be willing to work in an active war zone. How do we tell the stories of these drivers without putting them in any unnecessary danger. How do we make sure we all media is directed to supporting Ukraine and not Uber. How do we support the people of Ukraine end to end from the ideation to the execution.

• The business challenge the brand was facing - Making sure we didn't come off opportunistic, and making sure we didn't insight any more divisiveness about the war.

• Interpretation of the client needs and brand values - The clients brand values were already embedded in the nature of the situation, wherever movement is tested or halted they are willing to help in any capacity.

• Industry / target market - Our target was gen-pop not to be cliche, but they're the ones who were being fed news articles about the war, we wanted to make sure they also heard the stories of the civilians and drivers.

• The desired outcome - Rally global support for the people in Ukraine on the ground who needed their help.

• Outline the strategic process used to tackle the problem - We worked with Uber internal employees from the impacted region to ask how they felt about us moving forward with this campaign and if we did what did they want the world to take away.

• How did you arrive at the insight? We had several workshops with the agency, our social impact team, and the Uber driver ops team in Ukraine, we did zoom interviews with dozens of drivers to learn about their experience since the full-scale war broke out.

• Internal/external challenges faced and how they were overcome - Convincing leadership that this work would not mean Uber is making a statement or opinion on the war, but speaking up for our driver partners.

• The breakthrough moment - Interviewing Oksana, a woman driver partner who could've fled but returned to save people after evacuating her family.

• Clearly explain the creative idea - Ukraine is fading from the spotlight of the news even though the war is spreading and more civilians are at risk, how do we create an opportunity to tell the stories of people on the ground through the lens of people on the ground.

• How the creative strategy directly influenced the creative execution - By staying laser focused on the desired outcome, to rally global support, which meant more listening in creative reviews and throughout production versus giving direction/feedback.

Uber formed ongoing partnerships in Ukraine, having doubled their footprint since the start of the full-blown war from 9 to 18 cities. In addition to raising over 8.5M through our campaign, we provided over ~330,000 free rides, launched Uber Shuttle to move people to safety, moved 500 truckloads of food and relief supplies, while also driving over 30,000 miles moving cultural artifacts to shelter. Gained positive press and built consumer awareness about our social impact effort globally.

Dara our CEO was invited to meet the minister of Ukraine.