Uber Marketing Strategy: a brief overview
Uber marketing strategy integrates print and media advertising, sales promotions, events and experiences, public relations and others. Particularly, Uber marketing strategy is mainly based on the word-of-mouth. Moreover, media in general and social media in particular play instrumental roles in terms of increasing the levels of Uber brand awareness in the global scale.
At the same time, it is important to note that during the past few years, Uber-related messages communicated by the media have been mainly focused on scandals involving Uber, thus damaging the company’s brand image. Uber sales and marketing costs amounted to USD 3,58 USD 4,63 and USD 3,15 billions in 2020, 2019 and 2018 respectively.[1]
Uber’s “rider-focused ad spend has increased twentyfold in the last year and a half.”[2] However, Chief Operating Officer Barney Harford has announced his plans to decrease marketing expenses as part of his attempts “bring a dose of financial discipline.”[3]
Uber 7ps of marketing focuses on product and price elements of the marketing mix to a greater extent compared to other elements. Specifically, the global transportation technology company is increasing the range of its services to target greater numbers of customer segments. At the same time, the majority of Uber services are cheaper than traditional taxi, illustrating company’s focus on cost element of the marketing mix.
Uber’s unique selling proposition is associated with cost efficiency, increasing service range and high level of customer convenience. Particularly, customers greatly appreciate convenience aspect of Uber value proposition. Accordingly, the global transportation technology company targets wide customer segment in terms of geographical location, age, social status and other criteria.
Uber Technologies Inc. Report contains the above analysis of Uber marketing strategy. The report illustrates the application of the major analytical strategic frameworks in business studies such as SWOT, PESTEL, Porter’s Five Forces, Value Chain analysis, Ansoff Matrix and McKinsey 7S Model on Uber. Moreover, the report contains analyses of Uber leadership, organizational structure and organizational culture. The report also comprises discussions of Uber business strategy, ecosystem and addresses issues of corporate social responsibility.
[1] Annual Report 2020 (2021) Uber Technologies Inc.
[2] Schiff, A. (2017) “Uber Is Upping Its Ad Spend And Doubling Down On Data” Ad Exchanger, Available at: https://adexchanger.com/mobile/uber-upping-ad-spend-doubling-data/
[3] Hook, L. (2017) “New Uber COO wants more strategy and less controversy” Financial Times, Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/46f68336-e5f3-11e7-8b99-0191e45377ec