Friday, July 19, 2024
In a market where there are more and more alternatives to mobility, the competition for distinction is fierce and at Cabify they are committed to differentiating themselves through a “premium service” that has different identity elements. We interviewed the Marketing Director in Spain to analyze the brand’s attributes and pillars and potential growth avenues for the future. Text: Javier Pérez Rey.
Ctrl.- Summarize your career path up to your current position and the team you have in Spain.
Silvia Echezarreta, Head of Marketing Department By Cabify.- I came to the world of advertising by chance, starting in the accounts department of FCB in 2014, with brands with which we produced events (Varma), created the brand from scratch (Quirón Salud) or worked with important brands such as Nivea or Heineken. From there I moved to the new business area of La Despensa in 2015, where I had the opportunity to create solutions for projects and competitions. I ended up with a large team of clients, among them Cabify, with whom we did our first launch campaign in 2018, very focused on Spain, a time when it was necessary to work on the institutional part, which was an invitation to politicians and the taxi sector to talk about the future of urban mobility, and to take this conversation to Twitter. Later, in February 2020, the opportunity arose to join Cabify as a brand manager to work on brand awareness and reputation. As a natural progression, in 2021 it was decided to create a marketing team.
I currently have two main legs under my responsibility, one is building and positioning the brand (brand marketing) and the other is ensuring business growth (growth marketing). I have changed from working on the upper funnel to working on the entire funnel for the three audiences, the private consumer part, the display part (fleets and drivers), and the corporate part.
It’s funny that you started to learn about the brand from the “other side”…
Furthermore, it was at a different time for the company than it is now, because of the whole regulatory issue. We have many moments in our marketing lives where regulation goes unnoticed, but there are specific situations where changes have an impact again, like when regulation has moved from a national level to a regional level. In those moments, you look back and think about what messages could be repeated in those kinds of situations because they worked so well. In the end, there are still messages that carry the same point, like we are here to help solve the mobility problems in cities.
How do you assess the evolution of brand building at Cabify and the key features we want to highlight today?
As a value proposition, we focus a lot on what we call “superior service”, because from the beginning, even when there was less competition in the sector, we were already aware and clear about what we wanted to achieve in terms of mobility. With the entry of competitors, there has been a “commoditization” of the sector and this message of superior service makes more sense, because we want it to be superior in its quality at all points, from the time you open the app until the driver drops you off at your destination, through how we accompany you in places and moments to everything that happens in the city, so that you can see the brand as more than just a service. As a brand, we have assets that embody this superior service, such as the water containers and the 21 Degrees magazine, which we have been publishing for a year, and which we still trust because it is a qualitative asset and a sample of what we want to build towards our audience, with entertainment inside and outside the car.
You are listed in the Kantar BrandZ ranking of the most valuable brands and you are fortunate to have a young and more resilient brand so to speak. What challenges do you currently face to maintain the strength of the pillars that support you?
In 2023, we entered this ranking at number 28, and frankly, it was a surprise, since being a young company, there are many things to build. However, the fact that you increasingly hear in the usual vernacular of people, of all ages, expressions like “ask for Cabify” or “ask for Cabi” in an informal way, is like entering into popular culture. For me, the next step to continue introducing ourselves to cities goes beyond the motivations to use your services, to introduce ourselves to the culture and life of cities. Our communication area is about making things happen in the city and done live: we talk about the concept of “reality is best”, which means that you enjoy things more personally and there our service acts as a facilitator. Within the purpose of the brand is to make cities a better place to live through mobility. The city and the person are two entities that we must connect and make life easier in places that suffer from time constraints and pressure.
What is your “primary goal,” and within your current mobility capabilities, where do you fit in to generate leads?
We have a “core target” of 25 to 45 years old, and we are currently more centered in the city center, but the scope of work is increasingly expanding. It is true that, in terms of industry standards, there are market niches where if you do not position yourself, other competitors will appear with lower prices, and then they can cost more because they are younger targets or have less purchasing power. However, as long as we maintain the quality that distinguishes us, there are more upper niches where we are similar due to security and a high level of comfort. On the other hand, as a brand, we are also fortunate to reach a younger segment and expand our reach. The way to grow comes from establishing ourselves in our “core” and also from being relevant to other targets who, due to their habits, needs or reasons for using it, do not have the brand present as much in their daily lives but, when they use it, we are relevant to them.
What is the brand implementation and effectiveness in the variety of regions where the company operates in Spain? How do we bring the global to the local?
To simplify a bit, we have two scenarios. First, the scenario of large cities, where the service, because of how it was created and because of the intrinsic needs of those cities, has a greater reach. There, the challenge we face as a brand is to enter or contribute something that has more to do with the culture and connects more emotionally with people, and try to be their favorite as a service and as a brand because the value that the category brings to you is more understood and the market is already mature: now it is up to them to choose you. Second, we have a second group of medium-sized cities, where the “ride-hailing” service is less established because of the city’s behavior and because people are attached to the private vehicle. In these places, the natural thing is to set service standards, such as price or availability, and try to create a value proposition and a need for the service. In our case, this “mix” of price and availability should be well prepared for weekend and weekday uses, because the usual entry point is usually leisure time and those moments usually generate peak demand and you have to try to expand the defined area and extrapolate it to new reasons for use. We try to be representative in looking for other options that you can appreciate or consider, and what is related to someone from this second group of cities that puts us in more consideration is to communicate more locally, as we did in the Seville Expo. In this case, a competitor had been investing for some time in positioning the service, but we saw that there was a missing link, and as a Spanish company, we were more legitimate in creating a local connection. This is more consistent with what we want to do at a national level.
What is it like working with creative, technology and media partners and what kind of relationship do you have with them and each other?
It works “always”. We have a local marketing team and also a global marketing team that helps us continue to strategize in terms of the brand and define what the creative parameters are, because there is also an internal creative representation. There are completely “internal” campaigns and we both work hand in hand. So the majority of the annual plan is executed by a creative agency and a media agency that we are the link with, and our focus is on how they relate to each other in order to give us a more integrated strategy. So far we have talked about the message and the positioning, but then there is the business that, thanks to the large amount of “data” that we have internally, we see where it is growing and where there are opportunities that do not yet exist. Thanks to our data, the media agency can give us a logical presence proposal that attacks the different parts of the “funnel” and that is the kind of message that we can deliver to be relevant and cover the needs of our goals and sub-goals.
You are a brand born purely digital, but you also have a presence in traditional media as well as abroad. Why does this digital brand turn to them? Is it “on its own” or is it based on working with partners?
Both reasons are valid, and I believe that the commitment to a stronger investment, in this case in outdoor media, comes from a strategic point of view regarding the scope and consideration that you need to build on the street. We are fortunate to have our cars that represent our own “assets”, but beyond that I want to deliver a message every day to remind you that I am here for you and that I am better than any other alternative you might be looking for. In 2023 we have chosen the outdoor environment because it gives us important coverage and presence in the city and is consistent with being active in it.
Which digital channels or platforms do you use the most, and which ones do you focus on most to effectively listen to customers?
The social part is the most important for active listening, both quantitatively and qualitatively, because we have tools that allow us to measure the “sentiment” and “share of voice” that we have as a brand.
You can read the full interview in the July/August 2024 issue of Ctrl ControlPublicidad.
