Introduction to the Polish market

Case study for period of 39 months: May 2013 – July 2016

Goals specified by BlaBlaCar, which we wanted to implement in cooperation and through the media in Poland:

Goals:

1. Informing potential users of the platform about its existence.

2. Support in winning drivers and passengers.

3. Making BlaBlaCar a recognizable brand „first in mind”, i.e. outdistancing the competition.

1. When Profeina took over the process of communication for BlaBlaCar from the freelancer, 3 months after its debut, the brand BlaBlaCar was unknown in Poland.

Looking back, it is a shame to admit that during the first meeting, the representatives of Profeina inquired the representatives of BlaBlaCar what the service is about...

Not only BlaBlaCar was the unknown brand. The service of shared rides was unknown and unpopular, too.

Challenges

2. On the Polish market, for many years there existed a competition in the form of carpooling.pl. It was a double difficulty - except for the fact that it isa competitor, it appropriated the generic name of the service, also provided by BlaBlaCar.

What was planned?

What was done?

Preparing for cooperation:

• carrying out joint strategic workshops;

• planning „key messages” in the long time perspective;

• introduction and consistent use of the new, Polish name for the carpooling service i.e.: "shared rides”.

Technicalities, that is selected and used tools:

• Media Relations, e.g. press releases, contacts with selected journalists, arranging meetings and interviews;

• Searching for partnerships and allies - eg. support in arranging the presence of BlaBlaCar at Przystanek Woodstock;

• Special action with free parking in Warsaw for drivers who were carrying at least one passenger.

Activities in the area of Media Relations is one of the tools of building brand awareness.The success was achieved thanks to the combined forces of us, as a PR agency

and competences of BlaBlaCar team.

Note: we have not acted alone

advertisementPR, Media Relations in particulary

Activities in the area of Media Relations is one of the tools of building brand awareness.The success was achieved thanks to the combined forces of us, as a PR agency

and competences of BlaBlaCar team.

How in detail we cared about BlaBlaCar?

We divided works into stages

• At the first stage of cooperation we made drivers and passengers aware that they can reduce travel costs by sharing them;

• Then we communicated that shared rides are an alternative form of transport - an alternative for example to Polski Bus or PKP;

• With time, more and more often we described BlaBlaCar in the context of economic sharing;

• We mentioned ecology and sustainable development from time to time (without much response);

• The longer cooperation lasted, the more important direct communication with the community became (that is, in the own channels of BlaBlaCar).

Key messages during the cooperation period

Not everything can be planned!

Unscheduled events and topics

As the PR Agency that supports BlaBlaCar we undertook ("proactively") topics written out in strategy, but in the course of cooperation, with increasing brand awareness of BlaBlaCar, in the media more and more often appeared topics, to which we had to respond quickly and efficiently ("reactive"). Such - potentially critical - topics included:

• Insurance of drivers in case of an unfortunate incident in which the victim is a passenger of BlaBlaCar, who shares the cost of travel.

• The issue of the tax liability of the driver who carries a passenger.

• Mixing issues of shared rides with quasi-taxi applications by media; all the allegations made by taxi organizations to Uber, can backfire on BlaBlaCar.

• Issues related to the introduction of booking fees.

Effects? Magnificent!

2887 of publicationsIn the period from May 2013 to July 2016 (39 months of cooperation)

74/ per monthThe average number of publications and references per month throughout the entire

period of cooperation

Achieved commercial impact:

Achieved commercial impact:

Results and key messages

Who talked about BlaBlaCar - examples:

36 449 157 zł */**Value of advertising equivalent

* we exclude from his sum infos on: blogs, in social media, comments, because as the agency we were not responsible for the social channels;** we do not consider this as an important indicator, but give it for reference to those who may have different opinion.

Embodiment of success

When your 50+ year –old- aunt tells youat the family meeting, that she came by BlaBlaCar ...

It happened after several months of cooperation. We felt,that we’ve been doing our job well.

Summary

Summary

• The results in the form of publications appeared almost immediately due the relative novelty of the service (the current competition failed to break through to the media before)

• The results were coming in time and their distinct aggravation occurred after 12 months of cooperation; apogee in the number of quality publications took place at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd year of cooperation

• After a period of steady growth there occurred flattening in the number of publications, which coincided with the growing role of BlaBlaCar’s own channels (together with an increase in the number of users of BlaBlaCar); the growing role of social media caused that publications in the media slowly began to lose their importance (after approximately 3 years from the start of cooperation with the agency)

Key factors of success

• BlaBlaCar fulfills the promises it made - users actually ride cheaper, drivers reduce costs, and service unites them;

• methodical implementation of communication strategies planned for various stages; fixation through communication in key media benefits throughout the entire period of cooperation;

• the consistent use of the term "shared rides" (both in PR and in advertisements) thereby making it the generic name and sweeping out the previous name carpooling, appropriated by the competition;

• successful cooperation of agency the Customer; high quality of contact, mutual trust and "playing for one goal";

• apart from activities in the field of Media Relations - simultaneous running the advertising campaigns (of varying intensity and coverage during the period of cooperation) and ensuring high quality of published content in the social media (these components – on the Customer side).

Magdalena Góraktel.: 608 720 649e-mail: magda@profeina.plul. Patriotów 77/1504-966 Warszawa