MOBILITY AS MARKETING
Chance the Rapper has partnered with Lyft to give out free copies of his album. Anyone using Lyft can receive a link to download The Big Day for free, becoming the latest artist to bundle music with other products. LINK
- FLASHBACK: Chance the Rapper, takes unsuspecting Lyft passengers on a ride around the city of Chicago LINK
Elon Musk says Tesla owners will soon be able to stream Netflix and YouTube while the car is stopped. Musk says that it is an “amazingly immersive, cinematic feel” thanks to the comfortable seats and surround sound audio and that it has an “old school drive-in movie experience.” LINK
- FLASHBACK: A growing number of Japanese car-sharing users are renting cars for purposes other than driving LINK
BMW will charge an annual subscription fee to use Apple CarPlay in new vehicles. Users of Android phones are not affected by this change, as BMW does not support Google’s mobile platform in their vehicles. LINK
THE MOBILITY OF FOOD
- Uber is eyeing up supermarket delivery. Uber is talking to European supermarkets about partnering up for a potential grocery delivery service to compete with rivals like Deliveroo and Amazon. LINK
- STUDY: 28% of delivery drivers have eaten some of your food. LINK
- UberEats and Deliveroo are eating so much of restaurant profits that most “aren’t making any money” and “something has to give”. The cafe owner who helped spearhead UberEats’ launch in Sydney has warned that more than half of restaurants “are not actually making any money” on the platform and its rival Deliveroo. LINK
More business travelers are using scooters to get around town, and the rentable scooter trend is starting to show up in corporate expense reports. Lime is the most-expensed scooter service, collecting 57.50% of all receipts/expenses compared to 30.17% for Bird. The average receipt of a Lime rental is $6.63, and $8.92 for Bird LINK
- FLASHBACK: Few business travelers now take a taxi. Traditional taxis now account for just 8% of ground transportation transactions among American business travelers—the first time that figure has been in single digits. According to the report, the average Uber ride last quarter was $24.49 and the typical Lyft cost $21.28, versus $31.06 for taxis. Travelers gave Uber the highest satisfaction rating, 4.46 out of 5; taxis got the lowest rating, 3.83. LINK
POLICE AS MARKETING
Police officers in the city of Tempe are pulling over good drivers for their new ‘positive ticketing campaign’. Instead of getting a ticket or citation, “you would get a free drink coupon… at the Circle K”. But some people are upset at the initiative, reactions online from the news ranged from “this sucks” to “this is illegal.” LINK
Forget dating apps or dating sites, a single New York City realtor takes out a 30-second ad on Taxi TV to find a Husband. The $5,000 ad will be seen in 7,000 NYC cabs. I LOL’d when she said, “If you love your mother — but you still don’t live with her — feel free to give me a call.” If you’d like to contact her, just send an email to aManForAnn@gmail.com LINK
Uber is laying off 1/3 of its marketing team globally to become leaner and faster. The head of Uber’s marketing department also wrote in an internal email that she’s “consistently heard that we have too many people with overlapping mandates” and that there’s “deep dissatisfaction within the team.” LINK
Rome is offering credit on public transport for recycling old plastic bottles. Romans can earn five cents towards public transportation tickets for every plastic bottle they recycle at special machines around metro stations. Meaning if they recycle 30 bottles they receive a free €1.50 ticket. LINK
A ride-sharing pilot program launched by the transit authority in southern Nevada in partnership with Via has brought in a little more than $62,000 in revenue while costing $1.4 million in its first two months …. $600,000 of which was for start-up costs. LINK
- FLASHBACK: ViaVan, the joint venture between Via and Mercedes-Benz Vans, has announced the launch of its van-pooling service with BVG, the Berlin public transit authority. LINK
