The holiday season is one of Coca-Cola’s most iconic marketing moments, but standing out during a period saturated with advertising requires more than traditional media. Together, Coca-Cola and Uber launched a first-of-its-kind global partnership that transformed real-world journeys into a connected holiday brand experience, anchored by Coca-Cola as the global launch partner for Uber’s new Journey Takeover format.
At the center of the collaboration was a reimagining of the Uber map itself. For the first time globally, the Uber car icon was customized and localized by market, transforming into Coca-Cola’s iconic Holiday Caravan and turning everyday movement into a live branded storytelling canvas. By integrating Coca-Cola directly into the navigation experience, the campaign embedded the brand into moments of anticipation, travel, and celebration rather than relying on passive exposure.
Complementing this innovation was an interactive “Coca-Cola Holiday Greeting Card” playable that allowed users to create and share personalized digital holiday messages within Uber journey environments. Together, these elements created a cohesive experience blending movement, participation, and social sharing.
The partnership leveraged Uber’s first-party mobility and ordering insights to reach consumers during meaningful real-world moments, including traveling to gatherings, ordering food, or planning celebrations. Executed globally, the campaign maintained a consistent core experience while localizing creative, language, and cultural nuances to ensure relevance at scale.
Key objectives included launching Journey Takeover globally, driving engagement through interactive playables, and reinforcing Coca-Cola’s role in seasonal celebrations.
At the center of the partnership was the global launch of Journey Takeover, a new Uber advertising format designed to transform the entire journey experience into a connected brand environment. Coca-Cola served as the flagship global launch partner, becoming the first brand to customize the Uber map itself by transforming the live car icon into Coca-Cola’s iconic Holiday Caravan, localized by market across regions worldwide. This innovation turned real-world movement into a dynamic storytelling canvas, embedding the brand directly into moments of anticipation, travel, and celebration rather than surrounding them with traditional ad placements.
Building on this foundation, Coca-Cola and Uber developed an interactive playable “Holiday Greeting Card” experience that extended the Journey Takeover beyond visual branding into active participation. Riders and eaters could create and send personalized Coca-Cola digital cards directly within Uber’s journey environments, unlocking shared rewards and encouraging peer-to-peer sharing. The result was a shift from passive holiday messaging toward participatory storytelling that allowed consumers to amplify the campaign themselves.
Execution leveraged Uber’s multi-surface ecosystem to maintain continuity across the full journey lifecycle. Journey Ads introduced the playable interaction across dispatch, en-route, and on-trip phases, integrating engagement into moments when attention is naturally high. Journey TV extended storytelling through longer-form video designed for in-ride dwell time, reinforcing emotional holiday narratives and deepening brand connection.
Across Uber Eats, Homepage Billboards delivered high-impact seasonal visibility, while Post-Checkout placements captured consumers immediately after ordering, aligning messaging with meal occasions and beverage consideration. Rather than repeating creative across placements, Coca-Cola and Uber built a modular storytelling framework in which messaging evolved throughout the journey, from discovery and creation to sharing and redemption.
Executing at global scale introduced complexity, particularly in maintaining consistency while allowing for regional cultural expression. The solution was a flexible framework anchored by the universally recognizable Holiday Caravan iconography and Journey Takeover experience, with localized creative, language, and incentives layered on top. The playable was live in seven markets including US, UK, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, New Zealand and Australia.
What made this collaboration unique was the depth of platform integration. By embedding Coca-Cola into Uber’s core navigation interface while combining interactive playables, mobility-driven insights, and contextual storytelling, the partnership introduced a new model for immersive, globally scalable brand experiences built around real-world movement.
The global partnership between Coca-Cola and Uber successfully transformed holiday engagement into an interactive, participatory experience, demonstrating how mobility-driven media can deliver both scale and meaningful consumer connection across markets.
Executed globally with localized creative adaptations, the campaign maintained a consistent interactive framework while tailoring messaging to cultural nuances, enabling Coca-Cola to deliver a unified holiday experience at global scale. Journey Ads reached nearly 2.8 million unique users and generated more than 7.5 million impressions, achieving a 2.05% click-through rate and sustaining attention with an average exposure duration of 114 seconds—evidence that audiences actively engaged with the playable creative embedded within real-world journeys.
Journey TV video placements delivered exceptional performance, achieving a 98.8% completion rate, highlighting strong resonance within Uber’s immersive ride environment. On Uber Eats, Post-Checkout placements generated over 4.1 million impressions and consistent engagement, reinforcing Coca-Cola’s presence during high-intent moments tied to food and beverage decisions.
Beyond individual performance metrics, the partnership validated a new global model for brand collaboration: combining Coca-Cola’s iconic holiday storytelling with Uber’s mobility insights and interactive formats to transform everyday movement into shared seasonal moments. By turning passive exposure into active participation through a scalable, localized playable experience, the campaign met its objectives of driving engagement, encouraging social sharing, and redefining how brands connect with consumers during culturally significant moments.
