You know an ad campaign has to be a big deal when it reaches even me, in my heavily filtered little section of the Internet. And yet here we are: Uber’s Moving Forward campaign.
Uber is a terrible brand.
To begin with, I don’t like Uber.
- I don’t like Uber because of the way it has bullied and threatened the press.
- I don’t like Uber because of their borderline criminal non-competitive practices
- I don’t like Uber because their business model skirts the legal definitions of employer/employee relationships in a way that allows them to exploit their labor pool.
- But mostly I don’t like Uber because hundreds of sexual assaults take place on their watch every year, and they refuse to do anything about it.
You will note that I didn’t even mention the scandals, the data breach, the culture of misogyny, the hidden fees and exploitative pricing, and the compromised safety standards.
Here is an ongoing list of assaults, sexual assaults, deaths, etc due to Uber and Lyft drivers. The source is the taxicab industry, so it’s not unbiased, but I don’t doubt it’s accurate.
So, on the one hand, as a smartphone-owning person who doesn’t drive, I might be in the Uber customer demographic. But the company is so utterly toxic that I wouldn’t even consider it.
It is this toxicity that the “Moving Forward” campaign seems to seek to address. But does it?
Is it possible to reverse a bad brand image?
To start with, let’s make a comparison with another brand that had terrible brand equity. Domino’s Pizza. The company was in such a disastrous market position that they needed to do something drastic. Here’s what they did:
In some ways, the two spots are similar. They are both framed as first-person statements from the CEO to the customer. They are (perhaps) both intended to to “reset” customer relations and give the company improved credibility.
The Domino’s spot is SO MUCH MORE SUCCESSFUL.
- It specifically shows what customers were unhappy about.
- It shows authentic employee reactions to those complaints.
- It describes a comprehensive plan to address those complaints.
- It shows employees united and excited about the future
It is authentic, engaging, and genuinely makes you think that the new crust, the new sauce, and the new cheese will result in a better tasting pizza than your previous experiences with their brand. It does what that commercial needed to do (and it was successful, by the way; the company’s recovery has been studied and written about extensively, and remains a remarkable example of brand reversal)
Uber has a MUCH steeper mountain to climb, because the customer complaints aren’t simply bad pizza. They have made customers afraid for their safety, and in the #metoo era, it poses a huge challenge. Did they rise to the task?
Not even a little bit.
Uber fails to make the grade
The Uber spot (and all the materials in the campaign) are a non-apology apology. He alludes vaguely to a “need for a new direction”. He promises you will “see improvements for both riders and drivers”. He says that one of the core values of the company is to “always do the right thing”, which is outright laughable given the company history. He doesn’t even allude to the previous core values, changed just last year, that included “super pumpedness”. He promises that they are charting an “even better road.”
The campaign comes with a new microsite, of course, that again alludes to “improving Uber” and “changing the culture”. They are “getting serious about safety“.
The problem is, without clear, specific, explict statements that describe the problem, and clear, specific steps about what is being done to fix it, this all feels like hollow marketing talk. For example, in the new safety page, they say they are improving the driver screening process, but the process page was written in 2016 (and contains a lot of disclaimers blaming law enforcement for incomplete data about their drivers). There have been 21 alleged sexual assaults in Uber vehicles so far this year, and the company shows no signs that they want to improve accountability or take responsibility for these incidents.
I’m not suggesting that Uber is at fault for the actions of it’s drivers. I am suggesting that the very core operation of the company was designed by a guy along with other guys. If there had been women around at the very beginning, and they had been able to give input on the service, they would have pointed out that getting into a stranger’s car poses a safety risk (for women in particular, but not always). If that perspective had been voiced and taken seriously, then passenger safety would have been built into the app from the beginning. It never was, and it looks like perhaps it never will be.
Is Uber Moving Forward?
It’s clear that Uber is desperate to put the past behind them, to make people forget all the old scandals and bad news and their heinous CEO and start over on a new footing. To be honest, I think they could. Today’s news cycle is so overwhelming, nobody has much of a memory for last year’s CEO.
At this point, all Uber really has to do is demonstrate that their rides are safe and their pricing is fair. But in order to persuade people on that point, they need to admit that that has not been the case, and spell out what they are doing differently. I don’t think they do either of those things, and am not willing to move anywhere with this company.
Villon adVentures 
Hmmmmm…..one of the more detailed things I’ve read about Uber’s non-apology apology. What’s your take on how women can avoid sexual predator Uber drivers? Should the app allow riders to select the gender of the driver? If so, would this be fair to the driver who gets assigned a rider that may not be their closest fare (thus costing that driver time and potential money)? What about the rider who get’s bumped down the list because someone has requested the closest driver because of their gender? Depending on where you’re at in the city, you may have to wait several minutes for a driver. Now imagine that you have to wait longer because someone who came after you requested your driver?
I haven’t vented on this subject for a while so let me give you a little background about my experience with Uber.
I drove for Uber for a year (October 2015 to October 2016) and found that I made very little money. When you take into account all the down time (and airport/security fees) I was making less thatn $2 per hour. The fees are supposedly reimbursed to the driver but it took around 90 days to do so, and then it was all the fees. I was also forced to lie to the insurance company about using my vehicle as a commercial carrier as they would drop me if they knew. (State Farm’s policy has since changed and they don’t drop you anymore, they just stop your coverage the moment you turn on your Uber app). I was required to have a background check (DMV records), and fill out some survey questions (have you ever had a felony?) and supply paperwork/jpg.s showing that I was fully insured, including medical. Uber stated that it would pay up to $1 million in bodily injury to customers of their service. They do not cover any medical for the driver, nor do they cover any vehicle damage caused to the drivers vehicle or property/vehicle damage the driver may be involved in while on duty. Their insurance only kicks in after the drivers personal insurance has been exhausted. Thus, everything is on the driver. If I had had an accident while driving for them, I would lose my insurance and State Farm would fight to not pay for anything (as I hadn’t told them I was driving commercially). I could have purchased commercial insurance thruogh another company, but it was upwards of $1K per month, and I would be required to get commercial license plates.. Doing so would mean that I couldn’t get regular coverage (for my daily use) as most insurance comanies (like State Farm, Farmers, USAA, etc.) will not cover a vehicle with commercial plates.
After my first couple weeks of driving, finding out the app freezes and stops in certain dead zones, and dealing with a wide range of rider personalities, Uber starts in with the texts, first one or two a day, then multiple times. I guess they’re suppose to be encouraging but they get pretty annoying very quickly.
“It’s getting pretty busy on the road. Make more money by turning on you app and picking up a rider.”
“You would make more money if you drove during the prime driving hours of 10pm to 4am.”
“We’re experiencing high demand at this time. Log in and pick up a rider.”
“Riders are waiting for you. Log in and make more money.”
“Take adavantage of surge pricing. 2X normal incentive in surge zones.”
“You need to be driving more. Riders are waiting for you.”
It’s almost like you have a boss breathing down your neck telling you to make the company more money. I got into it to work, like the commercials showed, at my leisure, not on Ubers timeline. Also, when I mentioned that you’re not covered for down time, I mean any time a rider is not in the car with you. The initial uber commercials made is look like logging into the app means you’re now available and on the clock (and you are, you’re just not being paid). Sometimes the wait for a fare was over an hour (if you’re not in the inner city) and that is time you don’t get any reimbursement for. I believe cabs operate the same way, but Uber stressed to every city they invaded, that they were not like cabs, and the their pay plans were completely different.
I also didn’t mention that every two to three months Uber cut the rates they paid the drivers. My basic fee for a pickup started at $2:50 (plus time and miles travelled). That dropped times while I was with them. At the end it was $1.25 and the per mile fee was also reduced. Meanwhile, the fares paid by the passengers increased. Ubers explanation was that they had to pay a city security fee (to make sure our drivers won’t harm their passengers) and increased airport fees ($4 per drop off or pickup). They couldn’t pass all the fees to the rider so they decreased driver pay to make up the rest.
I found most of my time with them was very stressful. I drove part time so I didn’t have 100+ riders a week. This being said, two or three ratings of less than 5-Stars could totally mess up your driver average. If you had less than a 4.6 for more than 2 weeks, you were dropped as a driver. Even if you’re Johnny-on-the-spot, you can only realistically pick up 3 riders an hour, and only if they’re short halls, like a few blocks in the downtown area. Given the rider pays about $7 for this short ride, the driver only recieves about $4 of this. All of this is pre-tax so the driver actually makes less.
Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention. Ubers customer service for drivers. When you’re a brand new driver they talk to you on the phone. After that, your call goes to a voice system and you are steered to the Uber app or the Uber home page. Once there you either send an email or deal with a chat bot. The bot asks the same questions and requests the same materials be submitted, time after time, regardless of whether you’ve done it before. Going into an Uber office isn’t much better. They log into the website and ask you the same questions the bot does. They can’t check on your paperwork progress or any responses to questions you’ve submitted. Oh, and most of the staff is under 22 years old. Not that age means anything, but these are not seasoned customer service staff. In the end uber suspended my app and said that I needed to send in proof of private insurance (this is required yearly). It hadn’t been a year but I did it anyway. And then again, and again, and again, and in person. I finally got fed up with them and stopped pursuing them to unlock my app. I officially ended my carreer with them a little over a year of driving. They then send me multiple texts in the following months telling me how much money I could be earning if I was out on the road. They also asked that I submit the same insurance documents that I’d done several times. Their system IS NOT designed for the drivers pleasure.
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest Rebekah. It’s been building for a while. Every time I see an Uber all of this floods back into my brain. I have used Lyft a couple times in the past few months, and it doesn’t have the same effect on my. I guess it’s because I don’t know any of it’s internal policies.
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Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! I have seen other drivers complaints and challenges also, and agree that the company does not take care of drivers (whether they are classified as employees or contractors).
In terms of improving passenger safety from sexual assault and harassment, I don’t think any one system is going to be bulletproof, but here are some ideas.
– Allow a passenger to cancel a ride (mid-ride, if necessary) for personal safety reasons, and don’t charge a fee or penalty, and facilitate another Uber to pick them up immediately from wherever they are.
– Install cameras in the vehicles that the driver or passenger can turn on if they choose, to make a record of bad behavior.
– If a passenger complains of feeling safe, (and this is the big one, because they don’t do it) listen, respond, and investigate. If a driver gets two such complaints, they should be banned from the platform. Make it clear that threatening behavior will not be tolerated, and approach these complaints with an eye toward protecting the customer, not silencing them.
– Publish safety complaints in a public database with a visible record of how such complaints were resolved
Like I said, I don’t think that kind of thing would prevent every instance, but it would go a long way toward helping customers feel like they take it seriously and are committed to their safety.
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AdWeek expresses the same sentiment: https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/uber-promises-to-do-better-in-a-new-brand-campaign-featuring-the-companys-ceo/
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[…] I do not like Uber. While I love the idea of ridesharing, the way that it is executed is exploitative and unsafe, and […]
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