Ads During Your Uber Ride?
Uber and Lyft may one day try and monetize off of an ad platform either outside or inside their driver’s vehicles.
Most likely, they’d start with interior (higher margins, easier to scale, they’re a software company).
However, the question is whether or not they’ll put a “screen” in the car, like a taxi in New York City, or whether they’ll push these impressions through the user’s phone. If they opt for a BYOD model, they’ll most likely discourage any distraction of the rideshare passenger from his/her device. Just as airlines have in recent years, the BYOD model is cost-effective and easier to scale, with no hardware needed inside each vehicle.
If a platform like Play Octopus or Viuer has high adoption rates, maybe they’ll buy them just to shut them down. Or, perhaps they’ll buy them and have screens that integrate with users’ phones — so you can use your phone on their screens (like an AirPlay feature or something). A larger screen would be helpful when looking at things like Instagram etc. They would have to integrate ads into this — so maybe they put them on the sides of the phone screen. They would also need to start a rewards program that was separate from ordering rides to encourage users to use the larger screens on the headrests.
Since most passengers are not inside the Uber app throughout there trip, It would be a massive shift in behavior. It’s undoubtedly a natural next step for a company that’s been fighting driver pay battles for some time now . Uber could distribute some of this profit to the driver by way of impressions while in that driver’s vehicle.
At mobilads, we are doing something similar but on the outside of the vehicle. We pay drivers up to $200 a month to wrap their cars in advertising in a process that takes less than 20 minutes. We’re also testing ideas of having more of a stationary “display” on the exterior, that can be more easily interchanged month to month for shorter campaigns. We hope to test this soon.
Another option for external advertising would be to have augmented reality window displays in each vehicle. These could be hooked up to the power source like a tablet, and when you look out the window, you see ads on the buildings of companies and products that are tailor-fit to you. Uber could use their knowledge of their passengers to customize this for each passenger. I’m sure with the development of 5G technology this won’t be such a crazy idea in the coming years.
Imagine the Empire State Building lit up with Carolina Panthers colors (that would be for me), as you drive down 34th street towards it.
Craig Cook — Chief Executive Officer — craig@mobilads.co
