After five-years building a brand for young, urban professionals through the ‘Tonight, I’ll be eating...’ (TIBE) campaign, Uber Eats Australia needed new sources of growth in an increasingly competitive category via acquiring suburban families (figures d&e), an audience with which the brand historically under-indexed - all without ‘breaking’ the existing idea, or sacrificing the pop-cultural tone that had proven so successful to date.

The problem was, families didn’t think Uber Eats was a ‘brand for them’ (figure f). And although most Australian families do have a strong, weekly takeaway night ritual, they don’t use Uber Eats for it. Instead they tend to order the same thing every week - simple, shareable family foods like pizza. This helped narrow our focus: Winning families meant winning the weekly takeaway night. But takeaway night was a shared moment and the brand was predominantly associated with solo ordering and more fancy food.

A deep-dive research project revealed why families ordered the same 'favourites’ on repeat each week - because more options actually leads to more arguments! (figure g)

In truth, living together ain’t easy. Between toddler tantrums, teenage hormones and mum’s uncool rules, the daily struggle through family micro-drama is real. Takeaway night is a highlight of the week, because everyone puts aside their (many) differences and enjoys sharing a meal together. For parents, the priority is keeping the peace, not scrolling through endless food options.

This led to our strategic insight -

When it comes to takeaway night, parents care more about everyone enjoying the shared occasion than about enjoying the actual food.

Strategic proposition: Every family has their differences, but a shared Uber Eats meal brings them together.

2021 Creative Expression: The Grey Wiggle learns to share

In keeping with the 'Tonight, I'll be eating...' campaign's 'cultural high five' construct, we added a new member to iconic Australian kids music group, The Wiggles.

Every parent has a love-hate relationship with The Wiggles, having endured years of their annoyingly over-the-top enthusiasm and quirky ear-worm nursery rhymes on repeat. So to tap into this tension and provide parents with some light relief, our newly minted Wiggle was the antithesis of their colourful optimism. In contrast to the Red One, Yellow One, Blue One and Purple One, he was decidedly Grey and grumpy - played by one of the World's biggest snarks, X-Factor music critic, Simon Cowell.

Across an integrated campaign led by OOH and film (TV, social content, online video), the Grey Wiggle refuses to sing the Uber Eats order, he paints everything grey and he will not share. All while the Wiggles explain to him (often through song) that everything - including food - is better together.

This provided a hilariously exaggerated version of family takeaway-night drama, that also highlighted the role a shared meal can play in bridging those differences.

The campaign was also supported by a layer of shareable food communications featuring a full range of family favourites and set against the backdrop of the Wiggles household (figure h).