Caterina Parola, Joe Lanzerotti, Kristina Antonova

Dr. Helen Katz

PRAD 563: Media Planning

Lyft Media Plan Recommendation

SITUATION ANALYSIS

Lyft officially launched in 2012 in San Francisco, California. It was founded by Logan Green and John Zimmer, who had also created a ride-sharing platform named Zimride in 2007. The key difference between Zimride and Lyft is that Zimride was designed to connect people travelling between different cities, and Lyft is designed to allow trips that can vary from a few blocks to many miles (Bell, 2007). Zimride was made possible when Facebook opened its API to third party developers, allowing the app to run within the Facebook platform. The program was most popular amongst college students who were looking for cheap, environmentally conscious ways to travel home from college during breaks or long weekends. The added value of being partnered with Facebook was security- riders could see their driver’s profiles before the ride began and could make sure they looked legitimate and trustworthy. Lyft took the lessons learned during Zimride’s early years and expanded on them.

Since Lyft no longer relied on sharing stranger’s Facebook profiles to create a sense of safety, it pivoted and created a 5-star rating system that applies to both drivers and riders. Its early marketing efforts also stressed having a conversation with your driver, and even becoming friends with them. Lyft also allows for shorter rides and has expanded to include options like Lyft XL (a six-seater vehicle), and Lux (a luxury car). Lyft went through multiple rounds of funding and is currently valued at an estimated $15.1 billion (Reiff, 2019). It is a privately-owned company that filed its IPO in March of 2019.

MARKETING BACKGROUND

Lyft has a total of $50 million to utilize for marketing and to split up across platforms. As far as our goals in sales are concerned, we would like to double the amount of money invested. Therefore, as a total, we would like to ensure a total of $100 million sales in revenue. We would also like to reach 65% of women 18-34 an average of 5 times a week every 4 weeks. We have chosen to run our campaign in Q4 of 2019 and Q1 of 2020 and plan to reach our target demographic at least 5 times every month. We want to remind them and familiarize them with Lyft without bombarding them.

TARGET AUDIENCE

For our target audience, we will focus on Millennial women, aged 18-34 years old. The women we are trying to reach lead fast-paced lives in urban areas. They are diverse in age, race and lifestyle: some of them are single, some are married, some are mothers, which results in them living different but equally busy lifestyles. They are employed full-time in a wide variety of fields, some of which required previous college studies while others only require a high school diploma. Nevertheless, they all make a steady income that allows them to pay their bills, save some money and provide for their family, if they have one.

We are looking for women who do not own a car but still need to reach different places throughout the city, whether that is in order to hang out with their friends, go grocery shopping or drive their kids to activities. Right now, they most likely use public transportation, but they might also rent cars as needed and/or get rides from friends and family. As far as media consumption is concerned, our audience watches cable TV as well as subscription based streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu; they also utilize social media daily and read magazines from time to time.

One point to stress is that our audience is not new to Lyft: in fact, they are already familiar with the transportation service, and perhaps they have used it before. We are not introducing a new product to them, but instead we are raising awareness around the benefits of Lyft’s services.

TARGET PERSONA

Laura is a 28 year old young Latina woman who lives in the North Side of Chicago. She is a full-time art director at Leo Burnett, and spends long days at her job, creating new ads and campaigns. She commutes to downtown Chicago on the Red Line, which is usually very crowded in the morning, but is a convenient way to get to work. Laura often stays long hours at work, going home in the later hours.

When she is not at work, Laura enjoys relaxing at home watching Netflix, and meeting her girlfriends for happy hour around River North or the North Side. She is also a member of a kickboxing gym in Lincoln Park, and works out 2 to 3 times per week. Laura moves frequently around the city, and complains about the Chicago cold. Sometimes she wishes she had a car, but at the same time, she thinks that it’s pointless to have one in the city: to her, it’s a waste of money, as she would not use it much because of the crazy traffic and the few (and expensive!) parking lots and spots.

Laura knows about Lyft, as many of her friends use it, but does not have the app downloaded on her phone; she thinks that the on-demand transportation service is not really for her and that she wouldn’t use it often. However, she has used Uber in the past, but was not satisfied with their customer service and therefore gave up transit services entirely. Laura does not have an opinion of Lyft yet, but she does need reliable transportation.

MEDIA STRATEGIES

Placing Lyft’s messaging in front of the right audience at the right time is crucial if we are going to be able to increase their 2020 revenue by 10% over 2019. While Lyft is a flexible brand that could place its messages in any number of mediums easily, we propose focusing on five different avenues: television, digital programmatic, national magazines, Netflix product placement, and a partnership with a meal-kit delivery service. The bulk of our budget will be allocated to television and digital ad placements, since these mediums have the highest amount of reach for our demographic. Placing advertisements in nationally accredited fashion, food, and travel magazines can help establish a level of respectability with our target audience. Enforcing the idea that Lyft is culturally relevant is important, and we want to find ways to seamlessly work their branding into Netflix-created content that younger people binge watch. Partnering with Hello Fresh, a challenger brand in the meal prep space, is the final step for us to stay top of mind with our young professional demographic.

1. TELEVISION

Television has the power to reach millions of people across the country on a regular basis. The largest portion of our advertising budget will be spent on television ads during the colder months of the year- this includes fourth quarter especially. Overall, we are planning on spending $15 million of our budget on television scatters and calendar year upfronts, with a focus on cable networks over broadcast or syndicated programs. Our target demographic tends to have a higher level of college education and make more money, and is more likely to have a cable package. We are also able to drill down and advertise on networks that focus on fairly niche interests, like cooking or travel. These are broad interests, and television is a wide-reaching platform in general, but focusing on topics that our target demographic relates to should help us reach the group of people we are targeting.

Our television budget will be split into two pools – one for calendar year upfronts (Jan-Dec), and one for scatter buys in fourth quarter. Overall, the goal is to keep our messaging running in some capacity throughout the year, since people use ride-sharing applications year-round. However, we want to spend the most money during the colder months because people are more likely to be indoors watching television, and because people are more likely to forgo walking or using public transit when the temperatures are low. The networks that we will be purchasing during the calendar year upfront include Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, the BBC, and Lifetime Movie Network (LMN). The networks that we will pursue scatter buys for include Comedy Central, National Geographic, and Lifetime.

Our calendar year upfronts will run advertisements in every month of the year. The budgets will focus on run-of-schedule (ROS) programming, which is cheaper to purchase and can run anywhere. The goal of this portion of the ad buy is to increase the frequency of how often our target audience sees our messaging. Instead of splurging on one high-profile spot in a premiere, we will opt to get five or six spots spread throughout Prime, Price Access, and Weekend time slots instead. The networks that will be getting calendar year upfront purchase orders include Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, the BBC, and Lifetime Movie Network (LMN). A grand total of $10 million will be spent on these calendar year upfronts. Since LMN is a fully ROS network, it will receive the smallest budget at $1 million spread evenly across all four quarters. These dollars will stretch the furthest since the rates are lower, and the programming consists entirely of made-for-TV movies targeted at women. Cartoon Network will be receiving approximately $2 million, while Adult Swim will be getting an additional $3 million. Cartoon Network and Adult Swim run on the same channel, with Cartoon Network’s programming cutting off halfway through primetime and Adult Swim taking over for the remainder of Prime and Late Prime scheduling. The remaining $4 million will be placed on the BBC network. News coverage tends to be more expensive than the niche adult animation programming that Adult Swim provides, and we want to make sure we are able to adequately reach viewers throughout the whole year on BBC. Our budgets for BBC, Cartoon Network, and Adult Swim will be loaded with more weight in Q1 and Q4, but will continue through the middle of the year as well.

The scatter purchases that we will be making on Comedy Central, National Geographic, and Lifetime will be focused mainly on 4Q. New programs tend to debut towards the end of the calendar year, so we will be able to spend more money on getting some of our units in premieres and special events. $5 million from our television budget will be spent on scatters in total. Comedy Central will receive the lion’s share of the dollars, with a 4Q scatter purchase of $3 million. This is a channel that indexes well with Lyft users, but also indexes well with Uber riders. If we are going to steal share from Uber, we need to attack some of the channels that have led to success for both companies. The remaining $2 million will be split as evenly as possible between National Geographic and Lifetime. National Geographic will be purchased because the indices for Lyft and Uber remain deadlocked there, both with room to grow. National Geographic also aligns with the themes of travelling and exploring that we want our brand to be associated with. The content makes sense, and the ads will hopefully fit in seamlessly. Lifetime, on the other hand, is a channel that Lyft could use significant gains in. Lifetime has one of the most female-skewing audiences in cable, and yet a large portion of the audience doesn’t currently overlap with regular Lyft users. This is an area with extreme potential for growth. Lifetime’s recent cable smash hit Surviving R. Kelly made national headlines for cracking open a case against the predatory singer. It’s been credited as the impetus for his recent arrest, even though allegations of sexual misconduct have swirled around him for years. The younger skewing, socially conscious female demographic that we are seeking is on Lifetime, and will be ready to accept our messaging and support.

2. DIGITAL

In addition to our television spend, we will be allocating $15 million for digital advertisements. From this pool of $15 million, $5 million will be spent with our cable partners on supplemental digital packages to go with our scatters and calendar year upfronts.  This will be done in order to obtain favorable pricing and double down on our television audiences. For example, we will negotiate with Comedy Central when we purchase our scatter schedule to include a basic digital plan as well. Many television networks are hungry to sell digital plans to accompany their linear inventory, and are willing to be more flexible with the CPMs or daypart mixes once digital purchases are included in the buy. These smaller digital purchases make sense because they can place ads on name-brand websites that our target audience trusts, for a reasonable price. The cable networks that we will purchase digital programmatic packages from include Adult Swim, Comedy Central, and the BBC. These networks have the highest indexes of viewership with our Female 18-34 target demographic, and we want to be able to reach them online or on television at all time. We know our audience frequents these channels, and is more likely to use their phone as a second screen to check out the websites as well. Reinforcing our messaging online makes sense when we can have confidence that our target demographic will be more disposed to visit these sites organically.

In total, we are proposing that $15 million be spent on digital advertising in 2020. From that overall $15 million, $5 will be set aside for supplemental digital packages through cable partners. The remaining $10 million will be spent on a combination of trustworthy news websites that our target demographic regularly visits, and niche interest websites that align with our overall campaign. The news websites that we would like to purchase ads from include the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. A very large percentage of Lyft users frequently visit these online publications, and we want to continue to reach them there as often as possible. Since news advertising can tend to be more expensive, even in programmatic buys, we will be devoting $6 million in total to news websites, with $3 million specifically going to the New York Times, and the remaining $3 million split evenly between the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. To follow through with our plan to reach Females 18-34, we will also be placing digital ads on websites that align with the interests of our target demographic. $4 million dollars will be spent on a programmatic digital ad buy that will focus on major websites like Vogue, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, and All Recipes. We will also be using some of this $4 million buy to place ads on influencer blogs and websites like AdventurousKate.com, MinimalistBaker.com, TheBudgetFashionista.com, and FullSuitcase.com. These websites start to hone in on the niche parts of the overall Female 18-34 demographic that we are chasing. For example, Full Suitcase is a blog for people who want to travel but have small children. In addition, Minimalist Baker has easy recipes that require less than ten ingredients and one hour of time. Layering in these kinds of creative blogs and websites will help keep our messaging in front of our target demographic throughout their day online.

3. NETFLIX

Another main element of our media plan is subscription-based streaming service Netflix. “As of Q3 2018, Netflix users number 137.1 million in total” (Iqbal, 2019). 67.97% of Lyft users watch Netflix at least once a week. Because of our target audience’s heavy Netflix consumption, we plan on partnering with Netflix to promote Lyft’s brand alongside them. Netflix may not allow for advertisements to run before or during their programs, but they do create a lot of original content: our plan is to integrate Lyft into selected Netflix Originals through organic product placement.

The first Netflix Original series we have selected is Queer Eye – More Than a Makeover. Queer Eye is a reality TV makeover show that follows five gay men, the Fab Five, as they transform people who share different views and values from them. While the show is mostly funny and frivolous, with focus on grooming and styling, it also allows for social commentary and socio-political discussions. Queer Eye is very popular among millennial females, and the topics examined resonate well with our audience. The show is very successful, with a third season coming out March 15.

During Queer Eye episodes, we often see the Fab Five riding in cars, as they have to move from their headquarters to salons, events, or to go get the person they are “transforming”. These portions of the episode would be the perfect opportunity for Lyft to become an integral part of the show. The Fab Five could be filmed as they request a ride, wait for the car and then ride in style with Lyft. Since riding in cars is a recurring element of the show, Lyft could really aim for a continuous placement throughout all episodes and all seasons of Queer Eye. In addition, because our audience is already familiar with Lyft, the brand would surely be recognizable by our target audience, and the product placement would therefore be successful.

The second Netflix Original we have chosen is Thirteen Reasons Why. We believe that not only is the drama series very popular among our target audience: it also is a great fit for a partnership with Lyft. In fact, the series is set in today’s United States, and showcases a group of 17 and 18-year-old high-schoolers: because of the young age of the main characters of the series, it makes most sense for them to call a transportation service such as Lyft rather than flagging a cab to go anywhere. It simply feels more natural for a teenager or young adult to do so. By establishing a partnership with Thirteen Reasons Why, we would ensure that anytime a character of the series needs to get somewhere and perhaps isn’t driving, he/she would be portrayed requesting a Lyft, showing his or her phone on-screen and showcasing the easiness of the process. The show has been renewed for a third season, therefore, we can potentially place Lyft in thirteen new episodes.

As far as budget is concerned, we have allotted a total of $16 million for both product placements, which is divided in $8 million for each show. This amount should be sufficient to portray Lyft as an integral part of both shows.

4. MAGAZINES

We also want to reach our existing audience by adding advertisements in magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair. Vogue and Vanity Fair are specifically chosen because they are the most popular magazines that our target audiences reads already. Lyft was 116% higher than the average adults in Vogue readers and 56% higher than the average adults in Vanity Fair readers. Both magazines have a larger readership that uses Lyft compared to Uber. We figure this would be the perfect opportunity to solidify the readership base to Lyft; we already have the demographics to prove the majority of riders are female but Uber is catching up after fixing their policies on harassment. Lyft has always had the reputation for being more female-friendly and many female riders switched from Uber to Lyft after multiple scandals came out against Uber’s drivers and their harassment of female riders. Magazines will also give up an opportunity to connect more emotionally to the readership by providing more niche marketing versus a general ad. Magazine advertisements are also known for a longer lasting image that has a longer lifespan beyond the monthly release.

We plan to alternative ads between the two  magazines during Q4 & Q1. Our ads will consist of a mix of full page, half page (Horizontal) advertisements, ⅔ page, ⅓ (Slim), and sponsored native travel articles. We plan to use sponsored native articles to show a more natural appeal as well as use authors that our target audience already trusts for advice. If the readers see their favorite authors or columnists recommending Lyft over Uber, there is a bigger chance that they will at least try Lyft one time or hold Lyft in a better regard than Uber. Our budget for these ads would be $2 million; $1 million for each magazine. Each magazine will have an average of 6-7 advertisements per monthly issue as magazine advertisements can cost anywhere from $200 to $20,000 per ad (Alley, 2019). We will be changing the types of ads and the ads themselves between the two magazines. We don’t want to show the same ads in both magazines at the same time as usually the subscribers or readers read both magazines.

5. HELLOFRESH PARTNERSHIP

After reaching our target audience by utilizing media channels that we know they already use, we wanted to experiment and reach a newer audience. Both Lyft and Uber don’t have a large ridership among the Cooking Channel or Food Network audience. However, we know that more and more millennials are starting to use meal kit subscriptions. HelloFresh alone has “1.84 million active subscribers with 3.23 million orders in 2018” (Smith, 2019).

We want to reach a new audience through a unique way that has not been previously explored by either company. We plan on giving free points towards HelloFresh for every Lyft ride and every box for a month will receive a special discount codes or free ride for Lyft rides. If Lyft can tap into this untouched market, they can beat Uber in this category and make the gap between female and male riders larger. We decided to partner with a meal kit service because they are growing in popularity, especially with our target audience. Just like Lyft, they are also providing a more convenient service for on-the-go people. We decided to do a month long partnership for the month in November for two reasons: HelloFresh was founded in November so we can celebrate with free rides and discounts, and this month long partnership will round out the end of our media plan. The partnership between these two companies will be most effective in the month of November because the colder weather. More people will want to use Lyft rather than walk, and more people will want to stay home and cook rather than going out.

MEDIA FLOWCHART

            Flowchart is attached in seperate PDF.

 

Work Cited

Alley, Bobbye. “The Average Cost Of Advertising In A Fashion Magazine”. Sapling, 2019, https://www.sapling.com/10016643/average-cost-advertising-fashion-magazine. Accessed 6 Mar 2019.

Bell, Josh. “Facebook’s New Twist On Transportation”. ABC News, 2007, https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3555783#.T58XIsRYst1. Accessed 6 Mar 2019.

Iqbal, Mansoor. “Netflix Revenue And Usage Statistics (2018)”. Business Of Apps, 2019, http://www.businessofapps.com/data/netflix-statistics/. Accessed 4 Mar 2019.

Reiff, Nathan. “Key Differences Between Lyft And Uber”. Investopedia, 2019, https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/010715/key-differences-between-uber-and-lyft.asp. Accessed 5 Mar 2019.

Smith, Craig. “20 Interesting Hellofresh Statistics And Facts”. DMR, 2019, https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/interesting-hellofresh-statistics-facts-march-2017/. Accessed 5 Mar 2019.