Today’s post in our successful campus media campaigns case explores how Lyft achieved increased brand awareness and ridership through a nation-wide integrated campus media campaign. Attain your business objectives through the use of similar college media strategies.
Lyft, the second-largest ridesharing company in the United States, offers mobility as a service. This includes ride-hailing, vehicles for hire, motorized scooters, a bicycle-sharing system, rental cars, and food delivery in the United States and select cities in Canada.
For this campaign, Lyft wanted to raise awareness of their ride services and to increase driver applications in new markets throughout the U.S.
To achieve this goal, we devised an in-market strategy designed to reach those most likely to use the Lyft app, the college demographic. Our brand awareness and recruitment campaign was custom created to reach the target audience where they spend their time using language and images that would speak directly to them. For our target demographic, that meant creating an integrated campus media campaign to reach prospects where they live, eat, study, and play.
We employed on-trend campaign messaging designed to resonate with the entirety of the diverse college demographic, in addition to creating customized messaging for each micro-audience within each market. Content with wide appeal included messaging such as “Rides that fit the whole squad,” with images representing a diverse range of ethnicities and genders, and “Places to be? Lyft’s got your ride.”
The New Orleans campaign verbiage is an excellent example of the micro-messaging we used to speak to unique audiences in each market. Signage there proclaimed, “Beads & beignets & cafe au laits. Get 50% off your next 10 rides,” and “Faster than the Freret Jet” (referencing the local bus service).
We executed variations of this campaign in the major Designated Market Areas (DMAs) where Lyft was new to market – Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans, Baltimore, and DC. High impact, large format signage and posters were placed at local colleges, primarily commuter schools with large shares of students living at home. In this way, early Lyft adopters (students) served as “hubs,” influencing others in their household to utilize the rideshare service too.
Media placement varied by campus, based on what was available. We utilized every large format outdoor and on campus signage option offered, including bus shelters, transit routes, and kiosks. We also incorporated digital ads where appropriate, extending our reach and amplifying our traditional media efforts.
+ Learn the value of OOH/DOOH, transit ads & postering.
This national campus advertising campaign helped establish the Lyft brand in all targeted communities. The overall impact of the campaign exceeded expectations. We succeeded in delivering brand reach to college students throughout the United States with hundreds of millions of impressions.
By measuring brand awareness and ad recall pre-campaign launch, during the campaign, and after the campaign, we determined that absolute brand lift of 75% occurred within three months of campaign launch in each of the targeted communities/campuses. Lyft app usage (sales lift) data in these markets demonstrated that the college audience (ages 18-34) drove the greatest “usage” lift, signing up for and using the rideshare service more than any other demographic.
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Are you ready to create your own successful campus media campaign? See our complete guide to advertising to university students.
Here at MSS Media, Inc., we’ve been providing Education, Government, Real Estate & Lifestyle clients with succinct, optimized, and successful marketing solutions for more than 15 years. Consider MSS Media, Inc. a full-service, one-stop shop for all your Media and Public Relations needs. Your goals are our motivation. And our mission is to propel your message, further and faster, to achieve the outcomes you’re looking for. If you found this blog post helpful, please share!