Responses by Evan Catlett, creative director, Lime; Christian Navarro, head of global brand marketing, Lime; and Lizzy Ryan, head of media and communications, Cutwater.
Background: “The purpose of the campaign was to drive awareness of our recently launched LimePass in a big way to audiences in our campaign markets—Chicago, Seattle and Washington, DC,” says Christian Navarro. “In those cities, our LimePass pricing is the most affordable, and we used big-format, high-impact media placements in highly trafficked areas to get this message across to riders and non-riders alike.”
Design thinking: “We wanted to create a solution that was incredibly simple, easy-to-get and digest while feeling incredibly local with the references we made in the ads,” Navarro says. “We focused on making sure that the ads continued to build brand love in these markets and demonstrate local knowledge of what folks living in those cities have to deal with everyday in how they use transportation.”
Challenges: “The key tenets we wanted to hammer home while developing this campaign were simplicity and relatability,” explains Navarro. “We continued to revise until we were able to show the value of LimePass in the simplest and quickest way possible.”
Favorite details: “We’ve become quite proficient at developing campaigns in tandem with securing our media buys,” says Evan Catlett. “Concepting always involves questions such as if this will scale up or down properly, will it read on both portrait and landscape placements, and will it make sense in another city, among others. I’m proud of how our ability to move fast never compromises the quality of our campaigns and our considerate approach to showing the joy and affordability of riding Lime.”
“We were able to bring this idea to life very, very quickly,” says Lizzy Ryan. “With wonderful collaboration and quick communication across teams, this project went from an idea to a physical billboard in the blink of an eye. We’re also proud of how we were able to speak to each city in a unique way—tailoring the creative messaging to resonate with riders in specific neighborhoods. When you feel seen and understood by a brand, you’re more likely to engage with them, and that was our goal.
New lessons: “In true Lime fashion, I live in an urban environment, do not own a car, and I get around mostly on public transportation and my own personal e-scooter—sadly I do not live in a Lime market, yet,” Catlett says. “We did a ton of research on the local financial burdens of car ownership in each of these cities, and I was shocked at how our global society has normalized this for so long. It’s how we arrived at the campaign strategy: We didn’t need to go on and on about how bad cars are. We simply needed to show a price tag and demonstrate our value to riders.”
Time constraints: “We unlocked the budget for this campaign towards the end of the summer and wanted to ensure our investment was made while it was still pleasant outside in these cities,” explains Catlett. “This meant a compressed timeline for concepts. We didn’t have time for a photoshoot, and we also knew assets had to be adaptable for a wide range of aspect ratios and scales of OOH placements. This led to a concept that didn’t incorporate any full bleed imagery or photography and a template formula that looked beautiful and digestible regardless of canvas size. The best part is that we developed a framework and approach for a campaign that can be scaled—and has been scaled—across other markets globally.”
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