When the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic hit Australia, rideshare service DiDi had an opportunity to help drivers and riders get around safely, if they ever needed to. But while the majority of us were confined at home, healthcare workers were the ones bravely going to work every day to help keep the pandemic at bay; so they needed a safe, hygienic way to get there.
DiDi quickly created a new service just for them: DiDi Hero, offering sanitised rides for AHPRA healthcare workers at discounted fares. In order to make this happen, they committed $2M dollars to the service, and recruited drivers who volunteered to wear masks and undertake higher rates of sanitisation, to guarantee maximum safety.
Our goal was to ensure healthcare workers were aware of this exclusive service, created as a way to thank them for their life-saving work, and able to feel all the love and gratitude from the whole of Australia.
During the first wave of the pandemic, healthcare workers demonstrated their astounding selflessness: they were putting their own life on the line every day, in order to save others’. Australians wanted to show their gratitude but didn’t necessarily know how to reach them.
With DiDi Hero, we knew we’d have healthcare workers who chose to ride to work with the service as a captive audience for an average of 13 minutes - the perfect window for the public to share their messages of thanks.
But first, we needed to get the public’s attention.
A short video, filmed during lockdown, followed three real frontline workers on their rides to work, only to be met with a surprise call from Michael, a recovered COVID-19 survivor, who shared his touching personal message of thanks with them. This emotional film captured the hearts of viewers, prompting them to share their own messages of thanks via DiDi’s website.
These heartwarming messages were then illustrated by DiDi’s design team and turned into a gallery of digital ‘cards’.
Whenever healthcare workers rode with DiDi Hero, they were notified to the messages in the DiDi mobile app, thanks to a custom modification to its functionality. They could then read the messages on their way to and from work, giving them a little lift to help get them through their long shifts.
During the campaign, messages from the public were reposted by DiDi on Facebook and Instagram, prompting further community engagement and thank you messages.
The campaign outperformed all KPIs, and sentiment was universally positive:
10k healthcare workers signed up to DiDi.
21k DiDi Hero rides were taken in 1 month.
Over 500 heartfelt messages were received from the public and turned into digital thank-you cards.
The video delivered 10.7M impressions (4.1M above KPI), almost 2M engagements and a strong 8.64% ad recall.
Most importantly, DiDi saw an 8% increase in brand favourability and 6% increase in DiDi supporting drivers and likelihood to recommend.
