Uber Runs Marketing Campaign In France

Uber runs a marketing campaign in the EU member state to improve its reputation in the region.

Uber is planning an advertising blitz in France where it is frequently portrayed as a US invader. The move is taken as part of its extensive strategy to demonstrate its facility in a positive light amidst regulatory problems across the European region.

Starting on Wednesday, the American application based taxi service provider aims to transit bus and blanket bus kiosks in 10 cities of France with a series of billboards displaying typical French drivers and passengers sitting in the vehicles of the transportation service provider.

The advertisements, which will also be placed in local and national print publications, all have tags with the name of the ride sharing organization. “Uberet” reads one advertisement demonstrating a trio of weathered Frenchmen in berets smiling in a sedan. Another is showing a flamboyantly dressed passenger pensively having a look outside the window underneath the headline “Uberdumat’, which tells us roughly that “Uber o’clock in the morning.”

The taxi company refused to precisely state what it is paying for the several-week campaign, which has come from the French agency ‘Marcel’ – a part of the Publicis Groupe SA of France – but officials stated thousands of euros have been spent on it.

The campaign is reflecting on the efforts of the Californian cab company for promoting what according to it are its economic and social benefits for the European region, where some of the fierce resistance have troubled it.

After being pressurized by regulatory bodies and cab companies in regions from Spain to Germany, the company retreated from its facilities which do not use professional driving partners, and is regularly viewed as a business based in Silicon Valley that violates local regulations.

France, Uber’s first market outside the U.S., has particularly challenged it. The organization said it has enticed 1.5 million regular users in the state. Following a series of cab strikes, the French government has repeatedly tightened transport regulations, cutting down the growth of drivers of the organization.

Simultaneously, “Uberization” is buzzing in the political circles for future economy where low-wage employees live without employment agreements and are called by a smartphone application.

The government of France also directly aimed at the organization. Uber France’s General Manager Thibaud Simphal is presently waiting for a verdict of criminal case in which he and Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, the top official of the transporter in the European region, the Africa and Middle East, are alleged of breaching French privacy and transport regulations.

Prosecutors have asked the court that a fine of $1.1 million( €1 million) must be imposed on the organization and they should be banned from managing an organization for half a decade.