Year with Uber sits at the intersection of creativity, innovation and culture, as a web experience like no other: a data-driven music video, personalised to each and every rider, based on their year’s riding habits.

Created as a thank-you and a reminder of the role Uber plays in their lives, Year with Uber sought to build a deeper emotional connection with riders, setting Uber apart from tough local competition.

The experience was simple, its complexity concealed. It drew from users’ trip data to create a modular music video generated from 5,000+ possible combinations. With scenes inspired by the vibrancy of modern Asia-Pacific, the experience elevated data beyond mere visualisation to a celebration of personal memories.

A fun reflection of each user’s trip data and the unique way they ride.

Enjoyment was key to the experience, but data was true driving force.

To create a true data-driven film, over 1,000 data points were explored, with 8 key data points selected as the backbone of the experience from which the scenes were crafted.

Each data point was then broken down into sentiments to create a more personalised story. For instance, for the data point ‘Total trips taken’, users were segmented into 3 sentiments: High, Medium, Low.

Stories were extracted from these sentiments, inspired by life in Asia-Pacific. Filled with believable, relevant slice of life, scenes showed cars, people, and animals commonly sighted around the region. Festival scenes were included for cultural relevance and viral sensations for timeliness.

These stories were first written as 200 scripts to capture the dynamism and cultural nuances of the region. From these scripts, an original modular track was composed, with lyrics that corresponded to each data point’s sentiments.

Scenes were hand-crafted, animated to match each lyrical sentiment. Each story, setting and character created to be relevant and relatable, both culturally and personally.

The experience culminated in 2250 hours of hand-drawn animation, set to 29 modular verses in an original composition. All stitched together by a sophisticated engine, built in-house, to generate each rider’s music video sequence from 5,184 possible combinations.

Enter hyper-personalisation, where each music video was made unique by layering on the individual user’s riding stats as a super on top of the music video. The experience ended in a ‘Rider type’ and a video for them to share on social media.

The result? A bespoke music video with a modular structure, making no two users’ experiences the same.

Engagement was strong.

The site saw 1.90M unique visits where users spent an average of 2.02 minutes on the experience - a 44% uplift from the previous year’s campaign.

Once users started watching, they stayed until the end.

7 out of 10 people completed the full experience. 23% of which shared their personalised videos socially.

The campaign saw a staggering 275% brand uplift during the campaign period compared to last year’s Year with Uber 2016.

And people loved it.

Up to 64% of the users that saw the campaign recalled the main message and as much as 53% expressed positive change in their future intent to ride, firmly establishing Uber as a permanent fixture in their daily lives.