The San Francisco Bay area last month witnessed a Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART) strike, affecting thousands of daily commuters around the region.
But a company utilised this opportunity to increase its service footprint that eventually resulted in a win-win situation.
On June 27, when Car.ma (formerly known as Avego), Ireland-based car ride sharing company came to know about the potential BART strike, it quickly formulated a strategy to take advantage of the situation.
The company registered a website by name www.bartstrike.com, grabbed a Twitter handle, printed BART branded T-shirts, and printed 10,000 imitation BART tickets.
Then, the company ran a Facebook ad targeting SFO commuters about its car ride sharing service.
Result?
Car.ma noticed hundreds of new accounts created every day and signups in the region increased by 8,825%.
The company sharpened its marketing knife by even deploying helicopters to airlift nine commuters to their home.
Anticipating the next BART strike, Car.ma has already planned to setup three main hubs for commuters to meet and share a ride back home.
Below are two infographics that depict how Car.ma executed the real-time activity.
Fun fact: Car.ma made their COO cry once during this exercise. Must be in joy, hopefully.
Tip: Click on the infographic to enlarge.
Infographic 2: