Uber announced in a press release customers will soon see video adds across the company’s various service apps, including Uber Eats, Drizly, and their ride-hailing app. The full-length video ads will play on the main Uber app while users wait for their driver to arrive. Customers in the US will begin to see this over the coming weeks.
“We have two minutes of your attention. We know where you are, we know where you are going to, we know what you have eaten,” said Uber ad exec Mark Grether to The Wall Street Journal. “We can use all of that to then basically target a video ad towards you.” Two minutes is roughly how long Uber estimates an average customer looks at the Uber app on a typical 15-minute long journey.
The company will also install tablets into vehicles on a city-by-city basis. They also plan to roll out video ads into other markets like the UK, France, and Australia later this year. The video ads will be muted by default on all devices except in-car tablets and will run for 90 seconds. Uber said that users can opt out of receiving ads that use targeted demographic data, like their gender or ride history, but will be unable to opt out of seeing the video ads entirely.
