Uber for Business' Vicky Kerr On Creative Consistency Across The Globe

No one would argue that travel can be stressful. If it isn't a worry over a bag being over the weight limit then it's the potential of facing an (almost inevitable) delay or missing a connection.

But around these challenges, brands thrive. That's why Uber for Business is making getting from A-to-B easier than ever for professionals on a work trip. For Vicky Kerr, director of marketing EMEA and APAC, understanding its audience is at the heart of its work.

Its latest work uses out-of-home (OOH) in a location that Uber for Business’ key audience often frequent: the airport. The campaign targets business travellers at London City Airport, showcasing its offering to help them streamline corporate travel. 

The ads feature across arrivals halls with messaging stating: “From flight mode to work mode” and “From runaway to work day” alongside images of happy looking professionals on the go.

For this work, Kerr points out why OOH is particularly effective in engaging with business people in the City, describing it as " an effective vehicle to help with salience, consideration and awareness".

She continues: “For us, it’s about being super targeted. If you look at the City and its travellers, it’s maybe 70-75 per cent business travel. We wouldn’t necessarily do this at Gatwick, for example, as while we’ve got the consumer there, it’s also a holiday airport. For Uber for Business, meeting those business travelers where they are is what it’s about.” 

Within this, she notes, staying locally relevant is key, as Uber for Business is built city by city, with literal city by city understanding. “We could do creatives around the baggage drop relevant to its surroundings - places that really warrant it.” 

Kerr, approaching her four-year anniversary at Uber for Business after stints at Booking.com and Virgin Media, believes the work is a prime example of the team strategically acting on what change it wants to make. 

“One of the things I really value about my role at Uber is that it’s a really nice balance of the strategy piece; what are we going to do, but then actually getting stuff done,” she explains. 

“You can write hundreds of strategy decks but times that by zero action and you're still net zero. What I really like is trying to find that balance of being smart, figuring out what you want to do longer-term, so that you can add value to the end user, but then actually going out and getting it done.” 

Kerr’s lens of marketing is one that evolved from originally working in sales, where she was telemarketing for a B2B marketing agency. 

“I was making 80 calls a day, speaking to decision-makers, and started to get exposure to marketing which I really enjoyed,” she explains. “Sales by nature is more short-termist whereas marketing is a bit more strategic and future-facing. Everyone should do a bit of a run at that - and the same that everyone should probably work in customer services at some point in their life - it makes for better humans.” 

The pull towards marketing was creativity. “Coming up with creative ideas or strategies and problem solving also really appealed to me.”

Consistency Across The Globe

Leading the marketing across both EMEA and APAC, consistency is an integral part of Kerr’s work - one she doesn’t take lightly. 

“Everyone will tell you they’re different - and they are different - but that’s not where you find the efficiencies in the scale. That’s about trying to find the human insights that are the same, and trying to leverage that as much as possible.”

Uber for Business’ messaging platform, ‘Taken care of’, allows for insights into the decision makers and buyers to be seen. Kerr explains that people often don’t want to spend a great deal of time thinking about ground transportation, with it being roughly 10 per cent of spend; people want a solution that works and they want it to be taken care of quickly. 

“I just want to be taken care of. Taken care of - that’s the consistent piece that we bring to the forefront and then we’ll look for ways that can be more relevant in different markets,” Kerr says. 

“That could be around imagery - think about markets that have more established public transport - Australia or the UK, the tube, the Metro, or somewhere like India, where business people are more likely to be using airport travel. This is the kind of insight to consider where regional differences come in.” 

Navigating the ever-changing global landscape is something the business is always considering. Data from its 2024 UK Business travel trends outlook reveals that travel is set to become a top business priority for the future, with 89 per cent of travel managers anticipating increased budgets driven by return-to-office policies. 

Alongside, environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting is becoming a vital part of corporate travel, with businesses looking to align travel habits with broader sustainability goals and government requirements. 61 per cent of the report’s respondents believe climate concerns are leading to significant changes in their travel policies.

Uber for Business’ members dashboard provides tools for users to not only manage and track their travel, but offer insights into spending, usage trends and sustainability goals to name a few.

An integral part of ensuring consistency is maintained, Kerr credits the ability to touch-base with her team spread across the globe and stay connected.  

“Thank God for Slack,” she laughs. “Trying to build camaraderie across remote teams isn’t for the faint hearted - and I’m not saying I’ve completely nailed it, but we do our best to keep that playful element in our work as well.”

She continues: “I've got a few folks based in Sydney who look after APAC and then I've got folks based in Amsterdam. I also have someone based in Dubai, someone based in Paris and someone based in London, so that we can really work hand-in-hand with our sales teams."

Upon first arriving at Uber for Business, Kerr focused on EMEA and in the years since, she voices the growth of the team as something she’s proud of. 

“When I was only looking after EMEA I had one person looking after the UK, one person looking after France and one looking after Spain. Just the growth that we’ve seen in the last four years is incredible.”

Here are some of Kerr’s further insights into her experiences as a marketing leader:

Creative Salon: What currently excites you most about the world of marketing? 

Vicky Kerr: I do you think it is probably this point of creativity. We have got more license to do things that we previously wouldn't have done, even in the channels that I'm activating. So whether it's City Airport or we're experimenting with Spotify in Australia where we did an activation pop-up with Qantas points, there's more appetite for experimentation in the B2B world, which is super interesting. 

If we're smart, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. There is a lot of amazing learnings and we should be smart about leveraging them. 

On the flip side, what about marketing as a profession frustrates you? 

VK: I'm not sure if it's about the industry or just in general, but I still think this constant conversation about attribution and performance versus brand versus sales. That whole conversation is part of the job - we're all having it, but it kind of gets to a point where we need to be adults and realise that there's no silver bullet. 

It's a "we need brand and performance" conversation. You need brand to do some of the heavy lifting on the salience and the awareness and all that good stuff, to actually have people know who we are and what we do, and then you need performance to come in and effectively capture all of that demand. It's those conversations that are not in any way unique to my situation; it's an industry-wide conversation that lots of people are having. 

How do you see B2B marketing evolving? Are you able to be more creative than before when it comes to campaign development? 

VK: Yeah, I think so. Thank God we're moving away from the boring old white dude in a blue suit with a briefcase. There's a general acknowledgement that we're all marketing to people and there are more and more people within the decision-making process. 

The B2B Institute has done wonderful work on this and its research has really helped shape our thinking as marketers. So for B2B marketers to have more of a consistent train of thought on this, and then to be able to take that to our stakeholders internally, to build the right business cases and get incremental funding. But from a creative perspective, we can be more human about it and be less like no one ever got fired for doing that. 

What advice would you have for marketers to get the best out of their agency partners?

VK: Find the right one. It's important to find a good, genuine partner. That can be how you're built from a cultural perspective, for example, we’re super fast-paced at Uber so us working with some houses that want to go slowly doesn't work for us - it's not what we need. You need to think about not only pace but values, how we use data, that kind of stuff. It's like a really good marriage. 

If you've got an international lens you need someone with local market knowledge who can help us understand what’s going to resonate with folks there. 

What is the best piece of marketing advice or insight that has helped you through out your career? 

VK: This is more general career-building related but it's always stuck with me: that you work for yourself. Your job as someone who wants to build their career is you work for yourself, you get as much experience in whatever you find interesting, or you can make your mark as possible, because you can always take that with you and you can use it as leverage to do other things. 

That’s always really stuck with me to be like ‘I'm a master of my own destiny’. Experiences come and go but it's in your control and in your hands to go out and learn as much as you can and be curious and get involved.

What would you say has been your boldest creative play?

VK: The job that I'm doing now. We hustle. It’s one of the lovely things about working at Uber you're doing new stuff every day and you really are given the space to say ‘hey, we found this opportunity here, this is like a potential kind of experiment’.

It's not necessarily a creative campaign but I do think the work in general that we're doing here is really some of the biggest build. 

What advice would you give to someone thinking of getting a job in marketing?

VK: I would say it's not for the faint hearted. Anyone who thinks it's going to be all creative times and not particularly numbers or business orientated, is kidding themselves. You need to continue to know your numbers, you need to be smart, you need to be creative. But a plus side of that is that you can have such a varied career and life. If you're a curious person, it's a great place - you’re always learning. if you stop learning, then you've got a problem. 

Invest in yourself. Make sure you're following people like Mark Ritson, doing the relevant courses. There are so many resources out there that are really great.