Can taking a Lyft ride make a difference?
Lyft, the ride-sharing company, has been developing its reputation as a socially involved company and distance itself from its greatest competitor Uber. While Uber was and somewhat still is considered more aggressive and dominant, Lyft was trying to develop a socially aware brand. An approach that could tell the company’s story apart without being Uber’s shadow.
It started with Lyft’s donation to the ACLU in response to Trump’s travel ban, Lyft’s cooperation with Blue Cross and Blue Shield to increase access to health care in communities with transportation desserts, and the partnership with the National MedTrans Network to provide seniors in NYC an easy way to get rides to non-emergency medical appointments, and its efforts to take care of drivers. This is the main issue Lyft has emphasized lately, as it became a public company.
Lyft going public is a great opportunity to take a closer look at the company’s social responsibility activities. Mainly, to ask about the company’s social goals, methods and how effective they are. Entering the world of social responsibility means Lyft should develop and deliver their model of corporate social responsibility as part of their company’s financial, ethical and practical actions. In a world of do-good Lyft has to make sure the company’s brand and role as a social actor is meaningful and effective.
Lyft’s recent email to its clients mentions another interesting social responsibility project. Namely, relief rides during natural disasters, rides supporting communities facing obstacles in exercising their right to vote, and carbon emission. Lyft also announced on its new commitment to donate a minimum of $50 million a year or 1% of profits to improve city life through transportation: provide transportation to those in need, develop infrastructure and support clean energy initiatives.
Everything in Lyft’s email sounds positive and reasonable. Lyft’s efforts to become a socially aware and responsible company are noteworthy and seem genuine and honest. However, now is the best time to read deeper into the company’s social responsibility and the social narrative it developed, to learn more about the social change it promotes and its practical feasibility. Its email is lacking a practical and meaningful explanation of the company's efforts to steer change and context of its previous social actions.
Taking a seat can make a difference?
Lyft’s major social project is Round Up & Donate. This in-app program automatically rounds up riders’ fares to the nearest whole dollar and channels the difference to one of a group of selected charities.
Lyft launched this project on March 27, 2017, in an email sent to their clients. I first read about this venture in their email, which announced a big social responsibility project on its way, and was intrigued.
Let’s take a seat and read Lyft’s main social message together, to learn if taking a Lyft ride can make a difference:
All you gotta do is take a seat to take a stand.
Sit for something:
It’s always good to open with a funny quip, truly. It starts the audience smiling and feeling relaxed. Just make sure your joke is appropriate, please.
It’s what Lyft was founded on
What was? Instead of utilizing the joyful opening which drew our attention and made us interested, we get an enigmatic sentence, trying to tell us something about a for-profit commercial company doing some social good. A better option? Use the positive attention to say something simple, clear, and direct about your company’s social goals. The readers’ attention span is limited, so seize it to make your point.
Taking a seat can make a difference.
Another creative pun here. As much as I LOVE word games and puns, I am not sure this one really resonates with common sense, or that it’s particularly necessary here. What do I mean? We know of several famous sit-in demonstrations, both international and American, in which activists occupied an area as a protest to promote change. If Lyft is trying to link their venture to those sit-ins, such as Rosa Parks’ action and the Civil Rights Movement, the link needs to be clear and understandable.
Mixing sitting, a verb with a passive connotation, with the need to be active and promote change could also send a perplexing message. This is the opposite of what most nonprofit organizations are trying to do: convince people to leave their comfortable seats at home and volunteer. For example, there are multiple campaigns calling for Facebook users not simply to like posts, but to donate the money needed.
The ‘seating — donating’ pun is a possible Achilles heel for Lyft’s campaign, if you consider the corporate responsibility angle. Lyft wants to become a socially responsible company and a key player in this sphere. Therefore, it needs to consider the different contexts in which its activities and statements would be understood. It is wonderful that Lyft wants to advance its social responsibility activity, and every dollar that goes to social causes is blessed. But such endeavors cannot remain in the marketing, ‘good cause’ realm: they must advance to spur social action. Given that goal, using themes connecting sitting with action could be problematic.
With the power of community, the very concept of transportation can — in some small ways — improve people’s everyday lives.
Let’s break this sentence down.
With the power of community,
Which community? Lyft riders? They are scattered and may not share similar attributes with one another, other than the need to get somewhere using Lyft’s services.
If you want to create a sense of community among Lyft riders, to enhance their emotional commitment, find something distinctive that could connect them. In this case, I would address the common human desire to help others, the ‘warm glow’ feeling. You have the magic words of power and community. All you need is to add are words such as connect, engage, help others, commitment and so on. This would emphasize the connection they seek, but also add meaning to the text itself.
The very concept of transportation can — in some small ways — improve people’s everyday lives.
The rest of the sentence is a perfect start to talking about the venture. It is a simple, clear sentence that relates to the process itself. We understand that the charitable activity relates to transportation, hence wonderfully linking it to Lyft’s business activity DNA. Now, you’d expect that the following paragraph would explain the process, and give something more concrete.
We’ve always encouraged both drivers and passengers to find ways to make someone else’s day a bit better.
First part — awesome. Second part — not so much. If Lyft wants to show effective social responsibility, they must understand that this is not about making someone else’s day a bit better. It is about creating a long-term change. This is where the strategic charitable thinking should be useful, and why I advise clients to refrain from using small-scale actions of good will. This is even more important when we are talking about a large-scale company.
It’s these seemingly tiny moments of human connection where each of us can have a big impact on those around us.
Awesome. But again, this not about helping someone cross the road. If Lyft wants to be a nationwide socially responsible actor, it had better avoid such clichés.
So that got us thinking: What if we leveraged this opportunity to accomplish more? What if we got together the voices — and actions — of millions? What if we harnessed the collective might of our community?
OK. You got me there, what are you offering?
By the way, in my own reading of the text, when I read ‘the voices and actions of millions’ I automatically think about millions in profits. I would avoid using quantity at this point, before establishing the charitable rationale and model, which will deflect the public from calculating the expected donations — and the company’s likely profit.
Starting in a few weeks, Lyft will be launching a new feature called Round Up and Donate. Opt in, and we’ll automatically round up your total fare to the nearest whole dollar and push the difference towards issues impacting everyone everywhere. We’ll be sending out more details soon.
Sounds great. What is still missing? This:
push the difference towards issues impacting everyone everywhere
Issues impacting everyone everywhere? This aim is vague at best, even though Lyft’s simple model is finally clear.
What’s missing is the core of Lyft’s program: the venture’s effect and social change! What would those charities be? National or local level? Would they help the ‘community’ that was mentioned earlier? What kind of causes would they support? Can the riders choose their favorite charity?
Lyft missed hitting a homerun during the mere launch of their program. When they had the full attention of the media and their riders, when the story was still fresh and innovative, they didn’t deliver the charitable cause. This is exactly what differentiates between marketing a basic campaign launch and marketing a committed social responsibility process.
Thanks for being a part of this incredible community.
Thank you for embracing more steps to encourage people to donate!
A few more thoughts about Lyft’s launch:
Finding relevant media outlets
I did a random search online for this story and found it on CNNtech, Mashable, Fortune, The Verge, Engadget, TechCrunch, The Observer, GeekWire, USA Today, and Consumerist. Most of these websites are technology and finance-oriented. I would have added more nonprofit sector and philanthropy-oriented media outlets. This initiative has too much potential to stay in the ‘technology-financial profit’ frame, which will not upscale Lyft’s social image.
Context
This is Lyft’s second large charitable action, after pledging to donate 1M$ to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in response to President Trump’s immigration ban in January 2017.
Would a reference to the fact that Lyft is adopting a more active social role be necessary? I think so. That would frame the company’s actions in a different context than the one that sees its actions as an ‘anti–Uber’ campaign. Especially since Lyft’s response did generate some pushback among a lot of potential customers, who would be willing to give the company another chance if they might have some control over charitable donations, instead of supporting the ACLU by proxy.
Once Lyft entered the realm of corporate social responsibility, they started playing a different game. In this case, they should have delivered the charitable model ready and fully explained. This would prevent multiple angles of criticism later on and would mark them as a key, valued, and committed social actor.
To the best of my knowledge, Lyft has not yet published Round Up & Donate’s results and data, to demonstrate its social impact. Now might be a good time to think about it. This could be a great start for Lyft’s social story as a change-maker.
