4 ms·

Did you actually read the linked tweets?! Uber turns off a shitload of ad spending, nothing bad happens to new user acquisitions. I'd say there are about a mi

Did you actually read the linked tweets?! Uber turns off a shitload of ad spending, nothing bad happens to new user acquisitions. I'd say there are about a million better uses of a million dollars than just pissing them away on a scam.

thrav 6y ago
There’s an interesting question there about when this form of advertising becomes obsolete. Uber is in a very different position than many other companies. Anyone who browses the internet with regularity is already aware of their existence and probably just needs the right set of circumstances to come together to make Uber useful to them. I suspect the results would be different if Uber were earlier in their adoption curve, but maybe that’s not true either. Maybe they’d be ignored for different reasons at that time.
- wasdfff 6y ago
  Likewise, I probably haven’t seen an ad for coca cola or kleenex in a while. Once a brand is ubiquitous to the point where soda becomes coke and tissues become kleenex in the lexicon, it feels like ad spend is wasted.
  - jhawk28 6y ago
    Brand advertising is different. It is there to remind people about the brand. Companies do it because they have the analytics that show that it works.
    - Retric 6y ago
      They mostly do it from inertia, how well it works is a separate question. Historically you can find many examples of hugely successful advertising campaigns, it’s much harder to quantify the negative.
    - z3t4 6y ago
      I think both Uber and CocaCola has a lot of work to do until I like any of them. I like CocaCola as a product though. Never tried Uber. For example I really like some Nestle products, but try to avoid them because of their bad company/brand reputation, even if their product is both cheaper and tastier I buy from a competitor instead. Whatever a company stands for and how they act will affect their brand.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    Coca Cola spends billions on ads. 8 million views: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg4Mq5EAEzw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg4Mq5EAEzw
    - coldtea 6y ago
      >8 million views So, less than a viral cat video?
  - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
    Is it really christmas time, if there are no cocacola-trucks-driving-to-town ads on tv?
walshemj 6y ago
Paying for crappy app installs on shady sites is not really advertising. What they should have done was a proper hyperlocal SEO campaign like Firestone Gieco, and Mc Donalds do.
m00x 6y ago
There's a huge difference between a company that is widely known for being the app for ride hailing and a small company trying to get eyes on their new product.
coldtea 6y ago
Well, Uber is known to everybody by now. To the effect that "to Uber" is even kind of a verb/noun. Also people either need a hired transportation or not. If they don't have a car or don't want to mess with the traffic and need to go somewhere, it's either Uber or Taxi usually. It's not like Coca Cola, which is well known, but people could do without it (unless addicted), so needs to constantly nag people. And it's not like some new product, which without advertising nobody would even know it existed. In fact most of Uber's existance its operation has been 100% advertising (spending VS money to offer cheap rides and expand and gather "eyeballs" and "customers" without a profit). In my book, customer acquisition without profit is another name for advertising. So it doesn't sound strange that it could do without advertising today. But what if there were 3-4 strong players in the same, each eating in Uber's market share? You'll see how fast they'd found advertising indispensable again...
ashtonkem 6y ago
Literally lighting them on fire in a cold office to help provide some BTUs would’ve been a better use of that money, since at least that would offset spending somewhere else.

thrav 6y ago

There’s an interesting question there about when this form of advertising becomes obsolete. Uber is in a very different position than many other companies. Anyone who browses the internet with regularity is already aware of their existence and probably just needs the right set of circumstances to come together to make Uber useful to them. I suspect the results would be different if Uber were earlier in their adoption curve, but maybe that’s not true either. Maybe they’d be ignored for different reasons at that time.

wasdfff 6y ago
Likewise, I probably haven’t seen an ad for coca cola or kleenex in a while. Once a brand is ubiquitous to the point where soda becomes coke and tissues become kleenex in the lexicon, it feels like ad spend is wasted.
- jhawk28 6y ago
  Brand advertising is different. It is there to remind people about the brand. Companies do it because they have the analytics that show that it works.
  - Retric 6y ago
    They mostly do it from inertia, how well it works is a separate question. Historically you can find many examples of hugely successful advertising campaigns, it’s much harder to quantify the negative.
  - z3t4 6y ago
    I think both Uber and CocaCola has a lot of work to do until I like any of them. I like CocaCola as a product though. Never tried Uber. For example I really like some Nestle products, but try to avoid them because of their bad company/brand reputation, even if their product is both cheaper and tastier I buy from a competitor instead. Whatever a company stands for and how they act will affect their brand.
- DanBC 6y ago
  Coca Cola spends billions on ads. 8 million views: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg4Mq5EAEzw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg4Mq5EAEzw
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >8 million views So, less than a viral cat video?
- ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  Is it really christmas time, if there are no cocacola-trucks-driving-to-town ads on tv?

walshemj 6y ago

Paying for crappy app installs on shady sites is not really advertising. What they should have done was a proper hyperlocal SEO campaign like Firestone Gieco, and Mc Donalds do.

m00x 6y ago

There's a huge difference between a company that is widely known for being the app for ride hailing and a small company trying to get eyes on their new product.

coldtea 6y ago

Well, Uber is known to everybody by now. To the effect that "to Uber" is even kind of a verb/noun. Also people either need a hired transportation or not. If they don't have a car or don't want to mess with the traffic and need to go somewhere, it's either Uber or Taxi usually. It's not like Coca Cola, which is well known, but people could do without it (unless addicted), so needs to constantly nag people. And it's not like some new product, which without advertising nobody would even know it existed. In fact most of Uber's existance its operation has been 100% advertising (spending VS money to offer cheap rides and expand and gather "eyeballs" and "customers" without a profit). In my book, customer acquisition without profit is another name for advertising. So it doesn't sound strange that it could do without advertising today. But what if there were 3-4 strong players in the same, each eating in Uber's market share? You'll see how fast they'd found advertising indispensable again...

ashtonkem 6y ago

Literally lighting them on fire in a cold office to help provide some BTUs would’ve been a better use of that money, since at least that would offset spending somewhere else.