“My opinion has always been to go big, and go crazy. It can be hard to go big without a budget, but using the Carstache as an example—do something unexpected. Don’t just follow a trend.”
As an event planner, you work tirelessly to give your customers an incredible experience. Ethan Eyler of Lyft knows the feeling.
When his invention—a giant, fuzzy car mustache—caught Lyft’s attention a few years ago, a brand icon was born. Now, as head of their Ride Experience team, Ethan oversees everything from in-car products to ground-breaking experiential campaigns. His team works hard to consistently turn out-of-the-box ideas into national news stories.
Their goal? To create experiences that leave people with lasting, positive brand impressions.
Using a car as his “stage,” Ethan is in a unique position to deliver experiences to customers wherever they are. But his team’s strategies can be applied to any experiential marketing campaign—whether it comes to life on four wheels, or in a more traditional event setting.
Read on, get inspired, and use his insight to take your event attendees on a ride they won’t forget.
Can you tell us about your role at Lyft?
I run the Ride Experience team, which encompasses experiential marketing. We look at the experiential piece—super high-touch events, crazy stunts, and surprising experiences—as the “tip of the triangle,” so to speak. At the base of that triangle is each and every ride experience. That includes the giant pink “Carstache,” which is now the small glowing “Glowstache.” What’s interesting about experiential for us is that our stage is the car, and we constantly leverage that. Running Ride Experience means overseeing experiential marketing, too.
How long have you been doing this, and how would you say experiential has changed for you in that time?
I’ve been doing this for Lyft for almost 3 years. For a while, I just produced the mustaches. It’s a funny story, actually: I used to get TaskRabbits to drop them off at Lyft, and I never actually went into the office. And then one day I brought them in myself. I walked in with two bags of mustaches over my shoulder, and the whole company stood up and applauded—because I was the bottleneck to their growth at that point. They couldn’t add another driver until they had another mustache. And that’s how it all started.
At the beginning, we were a super scrappy team that was always asking, “How can we break through the noise with our little budget?” Now, we’ve established our brand to a certain extent, and people are excited to work with us. We have more budget, so we can go bigger.
What’s your strategy? Can you give us some examples of how you’ve applied it?
For us, it’s all about awareness. It’s about crafting an incredible experience for a few individuals and getting as many media impressions as possible. We’re always trying to get the right people to touch the experience, get content out of that, and then amplify it.
I started a program at Lyft called ‘Magic Mode’, where we take a fleet of cars and turn on a new mode in the app. For Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, we themed out a bunch of vans in fun and unexpected ways. One was a recording studio, one was a disco karaoke club. And you could ride in these things to and from the festival.
Another example would be SXSW, where we turned on ‘Weird Mode.’ We literally delivered “weird” on demand. We fabricated these crazy vans covered in disco ball tiles and lights, and hired actors. One van was themed out as “birthday on demand,” where they’d show up with a little stage and a birthday cake. Then they’d put you onstage and put a spotlight on you. They’d sing you happy birthday, and then before you knew it…BOOM, we’d be gone. Even with all the noise around SXSW, we got great press coverage because it was different than what everyone else was doing; plus, we made sure to touch the right people.
We’re in a unique position, in that we don’t really exist inside an event—we have the transportation to and from the event instead. It allows us to operate in the periphery and be a part of the larger experience.
What would your advice be to someone who doesn’t have a big budget or a big team?
My opinion has always been to go big, and go crazy. It’s hard to go big without a budget, but using the Carstache as an example—do something unexpected. Don’t just follow a trend.
There’s something to be said about visual pageantry and shock effect. In our day and age, it’s so easy to rely on things like social media. But with physical goods or physical pageantry, I think it’s worth spending a little money to take it to the next level; people crave it because everything is so digital now. So in the real world, be it on the front of a car, be it at an event—make an ordinary experience extraordinary by creating something truly unexpected.
Who is doing experiential right today, and what do you think tomorrow holds?
We’re working with an agency called Deeplocal out of Pittsburgh right now, and they do some really amazing things. They are basically a bunch of engineers who think like creative marketing people. They made this Nike “Chalkbot” for the Tour de France, which was incredible. People could text in inspirational messages for riders and it would spray them across the course in chalk. I really love blending technology and reality, and playing with where those merge. And I think that’s where experiential is headed. Virtual reality will definitely keep getting more popular.
As Ethan has shown us, there’s no “right” way to do experiential marketing. Different companies have different strategies based on their goals or their brand. (Take Airbnb, for example.) But in the end, it’s about pushing yourself to craft a truly unexpected, delightful experience for your audience.
So, what creative idea will you bring to life at your next event? Consider exploring partnership opportunities with innovative companies like Lyft that allow you to create a bigger experience—one that extends beyond the event. Check out these 6 tips for growing your event through partnerships for inspiration to get started.
