Uber Eats Japan launched in 2016, second-to-market in online food delivery vs local incumbent Demaecan. Over the next few years, Uber Eats super-charged growth with a core, early adopter audience (urban, pre-family under-35s) by leveraging a localised version of the irreverent and western-style brand campaign from Australia - ‘Tonight, I’ll be eating…’. Yet by 2022, Uber Eats needed new sources of growth from an older, family audience, who also represented higher value with larger average orders.

However, despite adjusting the existing brand campaign to focus on them in 2022, brand health metrics with families continued to lag (Brand consideration: Uber Eats = 37% vs locally-trusted Demaecan = 50%. Ipsos, 2022). The campaign delivered a 0% uplift in brand consideration with families. It was time to try something new.

Our Brief:

Develop a new brand campaign to bring an older, family audience into Uber Eats.

Objective:

Increase brand consideration with families.

The campaign this inspired, leveraged the insight that moms feel the most judged of all by their mother-in-laws, who usually have very traditional ideas about how they should behave, parent, and cook for the family.

Across TV, OOH, online film and social, we subverted this stereotype by creating a progressive mother-in-law character who instead of expecting mom to cook, suggests ‘Why not Uber Eats?’ to her family (which in Japanese carries the dual-meaning ‘go on, it’s okay to use…’). Using actress Mari Natsuki - well-loved by moms for her family-friendly yet punk-rock attitude and fashion - the campaign normalised the notion of moms getting help with dinner from Uber Eats, without undermining their parenting or attacking home cooking head-on.

Mari’s family reflected the quintessential Japanese norm, showing respect for local traditions, whilst also nudging the statusquo in a non-threatening way by suggesting that getting help with dinner really is okay.