What Went Wrong With “Uber Don’t Eats”
This was written as part of an assignment.
Uber’s 2022 Super Bowl campaign, “Uber Don’t Eats”, was set up to introduce, if not reinforce, the idea that you can use Uber Eats to order things that are not edible (aka, toiletries, cleaning supplies, homegoods, etc). Their target audience can be gleaned by taking stock of who they included in this ad: stars from HBO’s recent hit shows “The White Lotus” and “Succession”, The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow. All these people are probably most recognizable to folks with enough time and money to binge watch shows and care about whatever product Gwyneth is launching — 18–34 year olds who are new to adulting but don’t have the time/skill to make or pick up meals themselves. This is an audience that would rather have food delivered while they’re starting to binge a show like “Succession”. What Uber is doing here is trying to encourage that audience to extend their habits past food for almost any product Uber Eats can deliver.
Whether it was delivered effectively is something else entirely. There’s no point of differentiation given as to why Uber Eats should get those delivery dollars instead of Instacart or Shipt or Doordash or Grubhub or Walmart+ or… There are moments that were made to be angrily or aggressively reacted to: a person eating a diaper, Gwyneth eating her infamous vagina candle, and Trevor Noah breaking his teeth on a lightbulb. All while one of the most hated sounds on TikTok plays in the background. It seems like instead of a point of differentiation, Uber hoped to make people remember the brand by giving them something to hate tweet (while tagging the brand, of course). This is probably because as mentioned earlier, there probably is no point of differentiation they can offer: with every delivery app on the planet suddenly wanting to carry your groceries too (and sign up for their delivery subscription!) there’s too much choice for consumers. This isn’t even considering popular Gen Z-millenial brands like Trader Joe’s refusing to do delivery, or competition from the approximately 64 million grocery meal box providers. Failing to give consumers a reason to want to get their groceries on Uber Eats and instead saying “we also deliver groceries now” was a mistake.
The most clear sign of failure though is that Gen Z and millennials have not, in fact, made Uber Don’t Eats the new Grubhub Delivery Dance — a hated campaign that was memed to hell and back while probably outperforming in terms of engagement. This campaign came and went, with the ads having around 1–2M views on YouTube versus 18M for the Grubhub ad. Uber Don’t Eats indeed.
