‘We will be on this journey for a long time’: Uber’s first-ever marketing chief details how she plans to fix the dented brand

Beam
Suntory

• Uber tapped seasoned marketing executive Rebecca
  Messina as its first-ever global chief marketing officer this
  week.
• Business Insider caught up with Messina, who said that
  while Uber already offers reliability, it needs to add more
  meaning and humanity in the lives of both consumers and
  drivers.
• It’s critical for Uber to quickly articulate a
  consistent brand vision around the world, said
  Messina.
• She also acknowledged that because Uber came up so much
  faster, its product may have gotten ahead of its
  brand. 
• Messina added that her previous experience has prepped
  her to build Uber’s brand the right way and turn it into a
  21st century icon.

Uber is eyeing a comeback.

After a string of corporate disasters
dented its brand last year, the ride-hailing company seems
intent on winning back hearts as it prepares for an IPO next
year. Perhaps with that in mind, it just
appointed Rebecca Messina as its first-ever global chief
marketing officer this week. 

The seasoned marketing executive was most recently the
global marketing chief at liquor brand Beam Suntory,
spending 22 years at Coca-Cola in a variety of roles including
senior VP of marketing and innovation for venturing and emerging
brands prior to that.

Business Insider caught up with the incoming Uber marketing chief
to talk about her vision for Uber. Here’s an edited version of
the conversation.

Tanya Dua: It’s an interesting time at
Uber. You
are gearing up for an IPO, and still recovering from last
year’s corporate setbacks. Why is it time for the company to get
a CMO?

Rebecca Messina: The first is the change in
the CEO. We now have someone who really sees the landscape
holistically and understands the work that needs to be done.
They’ve already made tremendous strides in terms of the evolution
in engagement with drivers and with consumers, and built an
incredible product that we all need in our life. Now, it’s the
perfect opportunity to create a brand that also lives in our
heart.

That’s really the role of a CMO, right? I like to call myself,
really almost like the ‘chief meaning officer,’ in that how do I
really help bring meaning into this great brand around the world
and what it stands for. It’s been recognized that in Uber’s
trajectory, what got the brand here won’t get the brand where it
wants to go. So I think there was no time better than now. And I
think Dara saw that and made it first about rebuilding trust.
With trust built, we can build meaning on top of that. Trust is
the first fundamental.

Dua: Speaking of consumer trust, Uber
recently embarked on a massive marketing blitzkrieg. Do you
think that has helped? Is it working?

Messina: My sense as a consumer is that we
all live in the Uber landscape, right? It’s such an important
part of our lives. I think it’s certainly taking the right steps,
but I don’t think it’s enough. I absolutely think it’s helping.
Dara has integrity in that he means what he says, and I think
that’s genuinely felt by consumers and hopefully drivers at
large.

Dua: What else do you plan to do to win
audience trust back? What are some of the biggest branding
challenges that you see for the brand that still need to be
overcome?

Messina: There are a number of
stakeholders. And my first job, I feel, is to really put my arms
around the inside, around all the marketers inside the company,
because I think they really have a pulse on all of Uber’s markets
around the world. [They know] what’s going on with their
consumers and their drivers, and both play an incredibly
important role in building trust back with the brand. But we
don’t have the luxury of doing that sequentially. We’ll have to
quickly ensure that we’re also engaging through our brand
experiences with our drivers and consumers.

It’s about employees’ belief and trust in the brand, and
engagement of our marketing community and then understanding how
we really continue the trust journey with consumers and the
drivers everywhere. So I think it’s multifaceted. And we will
probably never be done. I don’t know if you’re ever done on a
trust journey. Trust is like a relationship. It can get eroded
quickly and it can get built back slowly. And I think that’s
something we have to recognize — that we will be on this journey
for a long time. 

Dua: What is your marketing strategy moving
forward? What is your biggest priority?

Messina: Certainly, first and foremost, priority
number one is about engaging with our 700 marketers around the
world, learning from these folks and recognizing the great work
that’s already been done. But then obviously standing up and also
formalizing the marketing function. There’s a lot of marketers,
and we need to organize how we’re going to do our work and how
we’re going to engage the other functions in the company and
really take that forward.

The second priority is obviously getting really clear on this
brand, and that’s not fast work. We have 75 million riders around
the world who engage with this brand, and it’s critically
important that we are quickly able to articulate a consistent
brand vision around the world, a consistent brand meaning, a
consistent set of brand values and live those through the actions
that we take. It’ll be the first thing I get at with that
marketing community and everyone else at Uber.

Dua: Can you give me a sense of how you
plan to spend as well? Do you see doing a lot more TV, or do you
see yourself branch out more?

Messina: I’ve always come from the camp of
where you tell your stories needs to depend on what story you’re
telling. And so, until we’re super clear on what the brand is
going to stand for, I think it’ll be hard to answer that. But
it’s going to be multifaceted for sure. Every one of those
mediums has a role. Dara’s message was so worthy of television,
and needed to be told with that high awareness and high reach.
But not every story needs to be told that way, some need to be
told more intimately and more one-on-one. We have to figure out
the stories we want to tell and where they’re best told.

Dua: As someone coming in from the outside
with a fresh pair of eyes, what are some things that you
think have worked for Uber as far as marketing is concerned so
far that you plan to continue with? And what are some things you
really want to overhaul or, or bring in and establish?

Messina: The experience tends to be
consistent. Not every car is consistent of course, but the
reliability is there. Those are things that are core and help
build the brand. I can count on it. That’s really important. It’s
reliable. I’d love to continue to push further on making it a
little more personal, kind of taking a step forward and just
getting a little more intimate, a little more one-on-one and
personal with its consumers. I can see opportunity there.

As an observer, as a rider currently, I can see that it’s got
reliability, but it might need a little more personality. There’s
human interaction every time the rider gets into a car, every
single time there’s a conversation waiting to happen. Its
about humanity. We do 15 million rides per day
globally. That’s a moment for human connection. And that is
so powerful and that’s something that makes Uber so incredibly
unique. There is something in there that we need to unlock,
around humanity and personalization.

Dua: So you’ve obviously had a ton of experience
at legacy companies like Coca-Cola and Beam Suntory. A lot of
those legacy companies themselves are struggling to adapt today,
but there’s a benefit to having had a foundation there. How do
you think your time there has prepared you for this role?

Messina: I have the benefit of having been at
Coke for some of the best years of their trajectory, in terms of
really becoming a global business. And because I got to see it
from so many vantage points, from the headquarters, from my time
overseas, I saw that growth trajectory and what that looks like.
But there’s certain steps, some brand-building fundamentals,
that you can’t skip. Uber’s come up so much faster —
it’s exponential — that maybe the product got ahead of the
brand. 

And I think I’ll be able to bring that healthy tension of let’s
ensure that the brand and the product are singing the same song
and one lives up to the other, instead of one getting in front of
the other. And that’s one thing that you learn from a legacy
company that built a brand the old way, that there are just
certain steps. Consumers have to fall in love with brands and
they have to do it step by step, just like we do with people.

Dua: And what are some things that you hope to
learn from a startup environment like Uber, that you think you
probably haven’t experienced yet?

Messina: I’m humbled that I have this
opportunity to join an organization of people that grew up native
to this new environment. I’m excited to learn about doing things
a little bit in reverse to the way I learned at Coke. Mistakes
that we made at Coke were righted in a much longer timeframe, but
today we have realtime feedback. Today, we have an ability to do
things and adjust and optimize constantly. That is a privilege.

I had once only dreamed of all these ways of measuring my
marketing activities that I now have today. I’m walking into a
company that does it every single day, naturally. And that is,
that’s a wonderful situation to be in.  I certainly think I
may bring some things that I hope can help advance the
organization, but I certainly think I have equal parts to learn.

Dua: What do you think makes for a
successful brand and business today? It’s obviously not how the
Cokes of the world built themselves.

Messina: The things that make a brand today are
some of the things that have always made a brand. It sits on
something that is fundamentally a human need or a human
desire — and not always a desire that is known. It was smart
folks who came before me who realized that there was an
opportunity to provide the service that Uber provides, but it
sits on something needed. And then, from there it absolutely has
to play and speak to consumers hearts’ and consumers’ minds. And
I certainly think that we’re on the brink here of becoming one of
the greatest icons in the 21st century. 

We have an opportunity to make this brand meaningful at both
levels — hearts and minds. We have a very rare opportunity
to engage the two sides of the marketplace, when a lot of legacy
brands have only had a one-sided marketplace. This is where the
whole idea of a consumer and a driver coming together is so
incredibly powerful. But the job to be done ultimately is still
the same. We have to talk to both, we have to bring meaning to
both. We have to stand for something we have to do with
consistency, and that is key. That has never changed. Great
brands are consistent.