This Easter, adults can return to childhood and get free candy by hunting for it. But you won’t carry a basket around a backyard or playground to gather your eggs and your chocolate, or your eggs made of chocolate. In the ride-hail cross-promotion version, you get the candy by swiping up enough Ubers.
See, you don’t know when you order your ride whether it will have a Cargo box strapped to the center console. The mini-vending machine, with its translucent lid inviting you to your next impulse purchase, also holds complimentary Easter-themed Cadbury Eggs and Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs. It makes the purchase (of a ride) in the hopes of a prize more like the Golden Ticket giveaway in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory than the classic Easter egg hunt.
The chocolate eggs are available for free while supplies last in all U.S. markets where Cargo is available to Uber drivers. Those are San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Chicago and more. Uber drivers already have Cargo’s boxes in their cars because it’s an opportunity to boost earnings and average ratings, as explained in Cargo’s video:
It is, of course, good for Uber as it IPOs and continues to battle Lyft -- the public might hunt for sweets rather than solid valuation -- but it’s really Cargo’s initiative. Cargo’s contracted drivers get to delight passengers with free candy and Cadbury and Reese’s get experiential marketing around Easter, one of their best sales seasons of the year.
Experiential marketing is on the rise in many consumer spaces, including the ride-hail backseat. Cargo’s latest is very Ivee-esque, as that startup also engages the senses to get new buyers hooked on some form of consumer packaged goods.
Meanwhile, trivia game Joyride has plans to integrate experiential marketing into the games one plays to earn free Uber rides.
In a phone interview, Cargo founder and chief executive Jeff Cripe said he’d only just heard of Ivee last week and the overlap is coincidental, but Cargo does have more event-oriented and experiential marketing planned. This year’s Superbowl, with Cargo boxes stocked with team-themed products, spurred four record sales day in a row.
“It was just massive for us and it really opened our eyes to the fact that when you have a relationship between something culturally relevant that’s happening and the product being relevant with people coming to and from events, it’s a super effective way to create a great passenger experience,” Cripe said.
Beyond the power of timing and cultural relevance to move specific products, Cripe believes broader retail trends are on his side. Fixed-location brick-and-mortar stores are fading from the landscape, creating more monetization potential in what he and company strategizers call the “third space,” which is the buying zone beyond home and work. According to Cargo’s research, shared mobility is the fastest growing third space, followed by Airbnb.
Because more transportation today is shared and electrified (and will eventually be autonomous), gas station stores won’t present as much opportunity for impulse purchases.
Even groceries are bought differently, which changes the stores’ layout. “Pretty soon there aren’t going to be checkout lines in our grocery stores because things like Amazon Go and competitive technology will exist that allow us to just go in [to the store and] grab what you need,” Cripe said. “Fixed location retail is changing.”
