Created by: Madalyn Reed
HISTORY OF UBER:
Uber Technologies Inc. was created in March of 2009 in San Francisco. The founders, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp met at the LeWeb tech conference in 2008 in France and discussed the cost of black car services. A year later Uber was born. About 5 years later Uber then launched UberFRESH service in Santa Monica, California. In August of 2014, it was renamed to UberEats and the ordering software was released on its own application separate from the app for Uber rides. Uber Eats has become very successful bringing in an average of 2.51 billion dollars each year. Their mission is to make eating well effortless for everyone, everywhere. Their service connects customers to Uber-speed delivery from restaurants in over 80 cities around the world. They help restaurants reach more customers and build their businesses.
CAMPAIGN:
A social media campaign that launched February 3, 2021 is promoting a six-month initiative to show up for local restaurants and dedicating 20 million dollars to support local effort across the U.S. Helping farmers and independent U.S restaurants that are extremely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This will support those whose are struggling and provide certainty around cash flow by continuing to waive a number of fees.
UberEats launched their campaign, #Eat Local a week before the Super Bowl on Twitter. UberEats did this with the help of 90s comedy superstars Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, who reprised their iconic “Wayne’s World” roles and were joined by music A-lister Cardi B. Myers and Carvey played up the nostalgia factor while Cardi B brought in the new age of TikTok dance trends. This brought an immense amount of attention to Uber Eats and the Super Bowl. During the game in the Uber Eats app there were images of Myers and Carvey pointing out deals and showing off the local restaurants that are near each individual. This made it easy and quick to find out the local business near you and the delivery fee was zero dollars which was beneficial for all parties involved. They used Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to post and spread this campaign. Twitter was the most prevalent though and is continuously growing during this campaign.
As people were enjoying the game on February 7, 2021 at home this year, UberEats accelerate the demand that weekend with a $0 delivery fee for all consumers ordering from local independent restaurants. UberEats is aware that the fees can be outrageous and are not beneficial to small local restaurants so by having the fees low they said, “we’re excited to score a touchdown for small business across the US through the big game” UberEats (Newsroom). Uber Eats also brought back the Restaurant Contributions feature in the UberEats app, with Uber matching every contribution that week dollar for dollar. This will be a continuously feature of the UberEats app for the rest of the year and hopefully forever. Within this campaign their target audience was wide, considering people from all ages use UberEats. With a spin from the 90s and a modern female music artist it can reach people from ages 17-60. This earned a lot of credibility within the campaign and increased their media usage.
Another aspect to this ‘Eat local’ campaign is the US Grant Program. UberEats marked around 4.5 million dollars in small business micro-grants for local restaurants with five or fewer locations who are active with UberEats. The recipients are chosen upon a few different factors such as civic engagement or the need for the program are just a few. The grants will be distributed and administered by LISC. The money can be used for anything from cold weather dining setup or personal restaurant needs. These grants are all built on a strong program Uber is supporting during this difficult time is the Black Businesses Matter Matching Fund. This was launched in January with chef Marcus Samuelsson and as we know these businesses have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Uber is doing everything in their power to create a happy atmosphere with this campaign and show off all the different ways they are impacted each local restaurant. Uber Eats is making sure that everyone is aware that the zero percent commission rate for all pickup orders used through UberEats will extend through June 30, 2021.
UberEats wants to kick start into 2021 with success to all local restaurants and show that no matter how small the contribution, together will bring everyone through this pandemic.
INFORMATION
Restaurants all over have been finding a new way to manage their businesses due to COVID-19.
Restaurant Dive released an article about third-party vs. direct delivery services and the high fees that are at costs. Lack of control is one of the main issues with prime industry argument against major third-party partnerships (Beckett.) Food delivery has sky rocketed since the pandemic arose whereas before it was never a necessity for restaurants to stay in business. In the past year, some local business only choice was to turn to third party vendors and hope that it will keep the restaurant afloat. There are several cities such as Washington D.C and Seattle that passed or are mulling a delivery fee caps to protect restaurants. The high commission rates are growing over 30 percent, even though it food delivery apps and restaurants must find a common ground for the whole concept to work.
In April 2020, major city Seattle capped the third-party delivery fee at 15 percent when the emergency order was issued. It is stated that it will be continued until the reopening of the industry occurs. New York City, Chicago and Illinois are other cities that followed suit to help local owned restaurants during this time. As seen in the graphic above, delivery food service apps have been growing in revenue despite the hurt it could cause local restaurants. Although, UberEats has a flexible marketplace fee. It allows for choices to be made and changed if needed, starting off at 30 percent to use the Uber platform. While 30 percent is a high commission rate fee, changes can be made. Connecting with delivery people and using UberEats real-time order tracking for customers and to support service issues if they occur. Next it moves to 15 percent to use personal delivery staff is restaurants chose to do so. Ultimately you pay a lower fee when you use your own delivery staff and it is available to switch back to UberEats delivery staff if needed. The last one is another 15 percent to offer customer pickup. Some people chose to skip the delivery altogether and let customers pickup their own orders while still enjoying ordering from the app. This gives people the option to choose what fits best for their restaurant. UberEats also gives credible data businesses can see. They will have the ability to see actionable data such as useful stats like item sales, inaccurate orders and customer feedback. They will be able to see short and long view data and have the ability to organize it by dates and numbers. Lastly it is simply and accessible design features. It can be color coded to see the data easier and it allows the charts to be brought to life.
SOCIAL MEDIA:
This campaign utilized three major platforms to promote eating local. Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. UberEats posted on each of these platforms frequently to bring awareness for the importance of this campaign. UberEats has growing platforms and this social media campaign has brought them more followers and engagements per click on everything. They have slowed down on posting about the campaign as the goal has been reached.
TWITTER:
UberEats uses Twitter frequently. This campaign launched a week before the Super Bowl and Twitter had the most engagements compared to any other platform. During the game, UberEats continually tweeted throughout the game. It had discounts and comments on the game as it went on. Through each quarter a new discount code was released all with the intention for people to eat at local restaurants while watching the game from home this year. Twitter made it clear of the goal of this campaign and that eating local should always be in mind. The 20-million-dollar program to support local restaurants was shown through videos, gifs and images on this platform. These also include the retweets, replies and comments throughout the twitter feed. UberEats used memes during the game of The Weeknd who was the musical act at the half time show to create comedic entertainment during the game. A popular tweet had over 11.2 K likes and over a thousand retweets of Dave Carvey gif about sharing a favorite restaurant. UberEats had a few shout outs from verified accounts such as television night host of, The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon and this had over 6,000 likes on this tweet.
INSTAGRAM:
UberEats used Instagram is an effective way. They currently have 499K followers and follow 223 accounts. The most important information from the campaign was highlighted on this platform. It used all videos and images that were matched with the aesthetic from the previous UberEats page. What was unique about this platform that was not shown on any other, was how they honored Black History Month while intertwining the campaign. This Instagram post curated 93 comments and thousands of likes. They showed the importance of black owned restaurants and how they need our support more than ever especially amid the pandemic. Other posts curated over 400 engagements as well. They took the time to highlight Black owned restaurants and throughout the month of February they are donating up to 250,000 dollars as part of the Marcus Samuelson Black Businesses Matter Matching Fund. Marcus Samuelson partnered with UberEats to highlight black chefs and black cuisine across the U.S. at the same time as the ‘Eat Local’ campaign. This was highlighted in the middle of the campaign which brought more attention on Instagram to the account. On Instagram, they had more food images and locations information for restaurants to support. UberEats used this unique platform to highlight specific locations and restaurants. Overall they had over 11,000 comments on all campaign related posts.
YOUTUBE:
UberEats posted the official commercial and small highlight clips on this platform only. Their account has 195K followers with over 17 million views. They have a playlist called Super Bowl 2021 that has all the videos in one area on their account for viewing. It is in order of release and viewers can watch the development of the campaign. UberEats took the time to make a 2 hour and 30-minute video to recognize all the people who helped create the commercial and thank them 89,151 times, this video had 124K views. There were highlight clips with 90s comedic stars, Mike Myers and Dana Carvey that did not do as well as the 17 million viewed commercial with music star Cardi B. Before the Eat Local campaign UberEats released the ‘Tonight, I’ll be eating…’ videos that set up the perfect stage to be intertwined with the Eat Local campaign.
SWOT ANALYSIS:
Strengths of this campaign were extensive through word of mouth and the placement during the 2021 Super Bowl. Uber and UberEats are already the most known ride and food delivery app as of 2021. The Super Bowl is the most viewed football game in the U.S and having this commercial in it allowed for great viewership for this campaign and goal. Their goal is to help people support their local businesses and bring people together through the pandemic. UberEats stayed safe with the ‘leave at my door’ option so there is no contact delivery for people who chose the option. UberEats generates around 4.8 billion dollars in revenue in 2020 and with the help of this campaign, it will surpass that in 2021. Averagely a 152 percent increase year on year. It is the most popular food service app with around 66 million users with a control of 29 percent of the global food delivery market. With the success from UberEats, their peers are following suit with their mindset. Grubhub for example teamed up with Restaurant Strong Fund in November to launch a winterization grant, providing 10,000 dollars to eligible independents. This came from the Grubhub community relief fund that was created in March the support restaurants impacted by the pandemic. DoorDash also expanded a 200 million main street program, increasing a grant program to cover costs like rent, payroll and winterization over 10 million dollars (Kelso).
Weaknesses of this campaign are small compared to the successes. The more attention this campaign got to raise 20 million dollars brought more people to the app and more orders to be sent. Which is good in retrospect, although the more orders more labor needed for UberEats. People experienced many delays with ordering food during the Super Bowl due to the mass popularity. It brought in plenty of money although many people were left waiting for their food and angry on social media platforms. Twitter was the platform that received the most backlash to UberEats. People complained about delayed deliveries as well as food being cold and receiving the wrong orders. UberEats failed to communicate clearly with its consumers that were voicing their complaints. It got a lot of attention but UberEats had discount codes and $0 delivery fees during the game and those discount codes for some did not work. It was said that these codes were to last through the end of February, bringing more attention the app with not enough UberEats drivers to successfully do the job. Restaurant Dive released an article about third-party vs. direct delivery services and the high fees that are at costs. Lack of control is one of the main issues with prime industry argument against major third-party partnerships (Beckett.) Food delivery has sky rocketed since the pandemic arose whereas before it was never a necessity for restaurants to stay in business. There are several cities such as Washington D.C and Seattle that passes or mulling a delivery fee caps to protect restaurants.
Opportunities in this campaign were optimistic for local restaurants and people. Having a campaign that its goal is to bring the community together brought businesses hope amid COVID-19. Black owned restaurants have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and it was with great honor the UberEats was able to serve many with the 4.5-million-dollar grant program and continued waved fees. It was with every intention that companies got the opportunity to potentially be a part of this act. UberEats support underscores the importance of the entire industry and wants to advance the recovery efforts. The micro-grants give restaurants and people the opportunity to stay afloat through these rough life conditions.
Threats that are potential to UberEats and this campaign are the competitors. Postmates, DoorDash and Grub Hub are all other forms of food delivery service and are popular in communities. DoorDash was the only other food delivery app that also had a commercial within the 2021 Super Bowl. It is arguable on what commercial did better, although each food delivery app has gotten back lash after these commercials have been released. Most people love third party delivery apps but there was heavy negative feedback from restaurants on these big tech companies that are pushing the already thin profit margins. It is a continuous issue in the foodservice industry and on Sunday during the game the ads were a main source to pull a part. Another threat that seems to be a commonality between these delivery apps that they charged fees for the delivery and small locally owned restaurants struggle with the high commission fees. The campaign helped a lot of people but it did not fix the high rate fee rate that is charged.
CONCLUSION:
After two and half months of this campaign, the goal was reached. There was no recorded announcement that this campaign is over but UberEats has taken out the #EatLocal out of their bios as it was in a few weeks prior. The posts about the campaign decreased in the past two weeks and it seems now the company is back to the originally UberEats aesthetic. The goal is for this mentality to live on through the restaurant industry. UberEats wants to continuously support all local restaurants and further their success as a delivery app. Reaching to people all over and keeping their mission to keep people eating well effortlessly.
Work Cited
Data you can act on, Uber Eats Restaurants.
https://restaurants.ubereats.com/us/en/what-we-offer/data-analytics/
How Fees Work, Uber Eats Restaurants.
https://restaurants.ubereats.com/us/en/pricing/
Uber Eats Earmarks $20M in Expansion of Independent Restaurant Support, Restaurant Dive. Alicia Kelso., February 4, 2021.
Third-Party vs. Direct Delivery: Debate reaches boiling point amid coronavirus, Restaurant Dive. Emma Liem Beckett., May 7, 2020.
Seattle Caps Delivery Fees at 15% in Emergency Order. Restaurant Dive. Alicia Kelso., April 28, 2020.
Expanding Our Main Street Strong Program to Further Empower Restaurants, DoorDash. January 27, 2021.
Expanding Our Main Street Strong Program to Further Empower Restaurants, DoorDash. January 27, 2021.
Expanding Our Main Street Strong Program to Further Empower Restaurants, DoorDash. January 27, 2021.
Social Media Case Studies SP21 