Everyone wants to discourage drinking and driving, but the Helpful SoCal Honda Dealers wanted to give people a tangible way to stay safe. By partnering with Uber, we were able to offer everyone watching the Super Bowl a free ride home. Our TV spot featured a code to enter into the Uber app that guaranteed the user a free uberX ride anywhere in the greater Los Angeles area during the two hours after the game. Thousands of people got home safely that night, and the Helpful SoCal Honda Dealers reinforced their brand promise in a major way, with their biggest Random Act of Helpfulness to date.

A one-take, 30-second spot announcing the SoCal Honda Dealers’ UberX promotion ran during the third quarter of the Super Bowl. In the spot, a Helpful Honda Guy outside a bar announced that anyone in the Greater Los Angeles area could get a free UberX ride home during the two hours after the final whistle. All they had to do was enter the code “Helpful” into their Uber app. This simple execution broke through the clutter of the other flashy Super Bowl spots by delivering a straightforward, highly relevant offer to everyone watching the game. In-app branding and custom receipts at the end of the free Uber ride further reminded people that no matter what kind of Uber car picked them up, it was Honda who got them home safe.

Super Bowl Sunday is the second deadliest day of the year for drunk driving accidents. We realized we could help decrease the number of drunk drivers on the road by offering free UberX rides after the game. We knew that many of our target market would be out at bars watching the game, so our offer of a free, safe ride home would immediately be of interest to them. We used the fact that we are a regional dealer group with a regional ad buy to our advantage. This activation have been too costly and complicated for a brand to execute at the national level.