Your brand voice is more essential than ever
A lesson from Uber.

Looking at the PR nightmare (to put it mildly) that Uber has been in since the start of 2017, you might be wondering just what went wrong.
Background
If you haven’t been following the ‘fall of Uber’ or lost interest along the way I don’t blame you, it’s a real marathon situation.
Uber has never been known for the most ethical of practices, but even by their standards 2017 has been a tough year.
Highlights below :
- #DeleteUber goes viral after Uber removed surge pricing when NYC taxi drivers strike in opposition to Donald Trump’s travel ban. (January, 2017)
- Former employee Susan Fowler files a sexual harassment lawsuit against Uber shedding light on a toxic company culture. (February, 2017)
- It comes to light that Uber has been using a tool to track law enforcement in cities that they were violating local legislation. (March, 2017)
- Travis Kalanic, Uber’s CEO, is caught on camera yelling at a driver. News also arises of him and his senior staff visiting an escort and karaoke bar in Seoul in 2014. (March, 2017)
- Leaks point to Uber creating a version of the app, nicknamed ‘Hell’, that tracked Lyft cars and identified dual platform drivers, steering them away from Lyft rides. (April, 2017)
- Uber pays NYC drivers tens of millions of dollars after admitting that they underpayed them. (May, 2017)
- Uber fires 20 employees following an in-house sexual harassment investigation following Susan Fowler’s report. (June, 2017)
- Kalanick first takes a leave of absense and then resigns based on pressure from investors and board of directors. (June, 2017)
Needless to say, 2017 has been for Uber what 2016 was for the rest of us.
You’re not the hero of your own story
Thinking back, Uber was never that great. Beyond the fact that they popularized the ride-sharing concept and pioneered the sharing economy, what did they really have over competitors like Lyft? Lyft has had the advantage of being one step behind Uber — learning from their mistakes, building a brand of ‘we’re everything Uber isn’t’. And it’s worked.
The main point that Lyft has capitalized on that Uber never did was brand voice and tone. In that way, Lyft was and is always one step ahead. Lyft has built a brand on safety for drivers, the fun and approachable ride-sharing app that you call when you’re out with friends to Uber’s cold and professional service that you call for a job interview.
Admittedly, Uber was the fist mover — they were the product that made ridesharing a viable business model. It’s why you’ll hear an aspiring entrepreneur say ‘we’re the Uber of X industry’. But the first mover advantage only gets you so far if you stop moving. While Uber continued to diversify their serices — food delivery, freight trucking, even R&D into self driving cars — they never had a strong brand beyond the ‘we were first’ mentality and as a result the services that weren’t first mover are struggling to compete.
Control your brand voice or the crowd will
Watching misstep after misstep this spring, I noticed that all public facing communication that addressed whatever new disaster arose came from either Uber corporate communications or from Travis’ personal accounts.
I was struck by the fact that from all the email marketing material I receive on a daily basis, there was not one mention to any of the turmoil Uber faced. I wondered if that was standard practice in the public relations field : don’t admit wrongdoing because there may be people who haven’t heard and you don’t want to lose their business too. While that may be a tactic, it is not standard practice. Without a strong brand voice, they resorted to hiding scandal after scandal.
The greatest struggle for a brand in Uber’s position is the understanding that the novelty of a technology wears off, it is the relationship that a brand develops with its users and customers that makes it last. The #deleteUber campaign went viral so easily because Uber never took control of their brand voice.
Not to say that that there weren’t (and still aren’t) a host of systemic issues within the organization, but the lesson to be learned from Uber is that customers’ relationship with a brand helps reduce a PR nightmare such as this.
Your customer’s relationship is branding armor
Without understanding and control of how your brand is being perceived, you are at a great disadvantage to building a relationship with your customers. To understand customer perception is to work to ensure your brand voice is strong and specifically crafted, you can foster stronger relationships with your customers by insulating your brand from situations like Uber’s.

