The ubiquity of Uber has turned it into a utility, making it easy to forget that the ridesharing service has not only revolutionised the way people move, but is transforming how they travel through life.

This especially holds true in Asia-Pacific, a region packed with strong local rideshare competitors, like Grab, GoJek, and Ola. It was necessary to rise above the pack and drive an emotional connection with audiences.

The objective was simple. Remind riders of the role Uber plays in their lives and thank them for journeying with Uber in 2017.

Enjoyment was key to the experience, but data was the 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.