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Uber Marketing

Uber Air looks to the skies to start aerial ridesharing by 2023 with CGI campaign

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By Kyle O'Brien | Creative Works Editor

June 11, 2019 | 5 min read

Uber has already gone under the seas with its scUber submarine ride share, and now the company looks to go aloft with Uber Air, bringing ridesharing to the skies, with a campaign that shows how it will be done.

Uber Air

Uber Air hopes to launch in 2023

Aerial ridesharing is a service Uber Elevate is poised to bring to market by 2023. For the first time consumers will have the ability to use aerial ridesharing within cities.

Uber Elevate handpicked creative and production boutique Bipolar Studio for the innovative marketing campaign around the venture, which launches today (11 June) at the Uber Elevate Summit. The integrated campaign includes a centerpiece film, experiential VR installation and print stills, as well as social content.

The collaboration with the Uber Elevate team was inspirational from the start, said Bipolar Studio’s Gevorg Karensky, director/creative director, and David Karapetyan, managing partner.

“Uber approached us to help create a campaign for this year’s summit so people could feel the incredible experience of flying on an Uber Air vehicle. We’ve always tried to reach for the skies. We’ve always been fascinated by them. There is something about being ‘up there’ that’s transcending and evolutionary. It’s about freedom of travel and that special view from above. So, we set out to create a sensory experience audiences wouldn’t forget.”

The campaign’s imagery was created entirely digitally by CGI. The centerpiece film, ‘Airborne’ delivers a cinematic vision of Uber’s upcoming aerial mass transit platform. It begins with an Uber Air flight traveling from Mission Bay HQ across sunny skies above San Francisco and landmarks like Warriors’ Arena and Transamerica Tower. Dusk gives way to early evening as lights blink on the ground below and buildings appear as silhouettes in the far background, images that are in reality, fully articulated digital cars and buildings. The Uber Air flight lands in Santa Clara on Uber’s Skytower. Total travel time: 18 minutes vs an hour or more in rush hour traffic. The multi-floor docking at Skytower is equipped to handle a high volume of commuters and each hour can land up to 1,000 eVTOLs (those futuristic-looking vehicles which hover, take off and land vertically).

Another part of the new campaign, a high-fidelity four-minute VR installation offered at Uber Elevate Summit, gave attendees a full flight experience inside a built-out physical cabin so they could see and feel what passengers will experience when they fly Uber Air. After the Summit, the installation will travel to Uber events globally. Still images and social media content will further extend the campaign’s reach.

John Badalamenti, head of design for Uber Elevate, commented: "We worked shoulder-to-shoulder with Bipolar Studio to create an entirely photoreal VR flight experience, detailed at a high level of accuracy: from the physics of flight and advanced flight patterns, down to the dust on the windows. This work represents a powerful milestone in communicating our vision through immersive storytelling and creates a foundation for design iteration that advances our perspective on the rider experience. Bipolar took things a step beyond that as well, creating ‘Airborne,’ our centerpiece 2D film, enabling future Uber Air passengers to take in the breadth and novelty of the journey outside the cabin from the perspective of the skyways."

“We wanted the campaign to communicate how Uber Air will work and appeal to consumers with cinematic visuals and exciting camera work,” Bipolar said in a statement, noting that automotive-style lighting was used on the eVTOLs and art direction had an eye toward the future while still being relatable, as in something you can almost touch. “We also knew the campaign had to be accurate and stand up to scrutiny from the FAA – Uber worked with the agency to get pre-screened and approved on the San Francisco to Santa Clara flight path.”

See some of the work by clicking on the Creative Works box below.

Uber: Uber Air campaign

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