TL;DR
Lyft aimed to make Divvy the go-to ride in Chicago before summer's end, partnering with Ubiquitous for a quick-turnaround influencer campaign. We recruited 9 creators, developed 40+ pieces of content, and executed the campaign in under a month—resulting in 8.1 million views, a $4.31 CPM, and thousands of positive comments, helping Lyft spike Divvy’s brand awareness and usage citywide.
Who Will Become Chi-Towns #1 Chi-Bike?
Bird, Lime, Jump—go into any city, and you’ll find scooters and bikes in every corner. This Cambrian explosion of short-distance transportation is reshaping urban mobility—and it’s exactly why Lyft acquired Chicago-based bike share company Divvy in 2019.
Fast-forward to June 2024, and Lyft wanted to turn Divvy scooters and bikes into the Windy City’s go-to ride with the help of influencer marketing. But there was one catch—time.
Chicago’s summers are mercilessly short (3.6 months, to be exact). How could Lyft spread the word about Divvy before it was too cold to even think about riding outside?
There was no room for trial and error. The campaign had to be ideated, planned, and launched in one month—tops. Fortunately, Lyft had an agency that could help with that.
Lyft 🤝 Ubiquitous (Since ‘21)
Enter: Ubiquitous. Since 2021, Ubiquitous has helped Lyft deploy over 30 campaigns of all shapes and sizes, including geo-targeted, national, and city-level campaigns.
That includes a Lyft x Citibike campaign in NYC, where Ubiquitous helped Lyft reach 114,000 views in just one month.
Similar to the local NYC campaign, Lyft wanted a local influencer campaign in Chicago that would reach millions at a target CPM. The rideshare company was eager to see how Chicagoans felt about Divvy—and whether their acquisition had captured a substantial slice of the market.
Lyft’s Goals and Objectives
Lyft aimed to drive brand awareness and get Chicagoans to ride Divvy’s e-scooters and bikes through collaborating with five Chicago-based creators. Let’s zoom in on their exact KPIs:
➜ 10X Impressions For Every $1 Investment: 800,000 to 1 million impressions, with a CPM ideally under $15.
➜ Conversion of 1%: 8,000 to 10,000 new activations using the creator's promo code to get their first unlock free.
➜ Positive Social Engagement: 300K organic impressions (with 500K being the dream).
➜ Quick Turnaround: A one-month campaign starting in June, with results and ROI available by August.
Becoming Lyft’s Marketing Extension
Lyft needed this campaign to be low-maintenance as their team was stretched thin (one employee was on a six-week sabbatical).
Running the campaign in-house wasn’t an option. Lyft’s marketing team knew from experience how time-consuming it was to manage influencers one-on-one—and the ROI rarely justified their workload.
That’s when Ubiquitous (that’s us 👋) came in. We integrated into Lyft’s Slack marketing channel, stored all relevant materials in shared Google Docs and Airtable, and scheduled quick bi-weekly update meetings.
With everything set up, we took the reins—scouting, reaching out to, and negotiating with top-notch creators—so Lyft didn’t have to lift (pun intended) a finger.
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Unveiling the Lyft and Divvy Gameplan
Phase One: Recruitment
We combed through our proprietary data platform, analyzing a range of quantitative and qualitative metrics to pinpoint the best creators for Lyft’s campaign from our pool of over 13,000 hand-picked creators. This narrowed it down to 34.
Lyft initially expected to partner with 3–5 creators. But Ubiquitous worked its magic, securing 9 creators while staying under budget thanks to our secret signature pricing model (and our negotiation skills didn’t hurt, either 😉).
Phase Two: Creation
Lyft wanted 2 in-feed videos and 2-3 story frames from each creator. We’ll do the math for you: That’s up to 45 deliverables.
With this being a local campaign there were tons of guidelines the creators had to follow, from not mentioning any competitors (*cough* Uber *cough*) to avoiding using “Lyft” or “Divvy” as a verb.
Translation? The creation part of the campaign alone would involve hundreds of emails, quality checks, and creative reviews.
Luckily, Ubiquitous has been there, done that. We kicked the creators off by providing a detailed creative brief that included proven templates from previous campaigns that generated over 93 million views.
Phase Three: Activation and Deployment
Just 10 days after locking in the creators, Ubiquitous had all their videos ready. The Ubiquitous team made sure every creator shot their content in little-known Chicago spots.
“The posts that tend to go viral trigger a feeling of ‘Oh my God, I never knew that.’ By filming in these hidden gems of Chicago, we could tap into that surprise factor—which is exactly what makes content shareable and memorable.” – Christine Williamson, Director of Creator Services at Ubiquitous
* (Fun Fact: No one on the Ubiquitous team is from Chicago. 😅 We had to get crafty and message Chicago friends to get their stamp of approval).
Over July, the creators uploaded their Divvy videos and stories. Though required to post on just one platform, a few creators posted across multiple channels—free of charge.
“When you give a creator respect and creative freedom, they won’t just ‘deliver content;’ they’ll become ambassadors. How? Because they’ll be proud of what they’ve created—and when they’re proud, they’re more likely to amplify your brand across all platforms.” — Jess Flack, CEO of Ubiquitous
To keep tabs on the 40-something pieces of content, Ubiquitous designed a customized project tracker. This database, paired with Ubiquitous’ daily recaps in Slack, ensured that Lyft's team never spent more than 30 minutes a day overseeing the campaign.
Overall Results and Campaign Insights
The campaign concluded in mid-July, giving Lyft plenty of time to expose its audience to Divvy before the seasons shifted. But here’s the real question: How did Lyft’s audience react?
Let’s let the numbers tell the story:
Influencer Campaign Performance
• Over 8 million views
• Over 30,000 engagements
• Executed CPM of $4.31
• Thousands of positive comments
Campaign Insights
✔ Smart pricing models maximize your budget. Lyft thought they could only afford a handful of creators, but Ubiquitous’ pricing model secured them 3X the creators—all while staying under budget.
- ➜ Here’s how: We used a proprietary method we’ve perfected over the years, blending performance, engagement, reach, and other custom metrics to price content more efficiently to get better value for your ad spend (music to your marketing ears 🎶).
✔ Creators with freedom go above and beyond. Lyft gave their creators creative flexibility, leading to posts shared across multiple channels—despite being paid for just one. When creators have freedom, they don’t just “deliver content:” They become brand ambassadors.
How’s Divvy Doing?
In three words: It’s on fire. In August, Lyft installed the 1,000th Divvy station at Damen Avenue and Lake Street, and the Chicago Department of Transportation will add 400 Divvy stations citywide over the next few years.
It’s all to keep up with demand: Divvy is projected to break a record high of over 6.6 million bike and scooter trips in 2024. It’s safe to say that Lyft’s acquisition of Divvy paid off—as did investing in influencer marketing to spread the word.
Need a Hand with Influencer Marketing?
If you’re a large company like Lyft, with dozens of products, services, and markets, we’ve got you covered. We’re pros at launching campaigns in all shapes and sizes.
Do you hear that? It’s your sigh of relief as we take the weight of influencer marketing off your shoulders.
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