The Y in Lyft

Going public forces a different kind of clarity. Lyft was no longer the scrappy alternative. It had become part of how cities move. The brand hadn't caught up to that yet.

What started as a campaign for IPO day became something bigger. A chance to realign the brand with the company Lyft had actually become.

focus:

Brand evolution
Campaign Platform
Go-to-market

collaborators:

impact:

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Opening Stock Price: $87.24, a 21% jump.
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First major ride-sharing company to go public
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Gained significant market share ahead of IPO
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featured in:

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Two Lyft riders in a back seat, one resting on the other's shoulder, with a pink 'Y' graphic overlaid
Nighttime street scene with people in colorful streetwear around a car and a bike, from Lyft brand photography
Lyft poster with the brand name in large pink letters, a photo set inside the type, and campaign copy
Messaging

Lean into the spelling mistake

Most companies approaching an IPO sand down their edges to look serious for Wall Street. We went the other way. We took the oddest thing about the brand, the misspelled name, and made it the hero.

The Y stood for everything a little off-center and human about Lyft, and celebrating it was how the company could go public without going corporate.

City wall covered in pink Lyft wildposting posters featuring the Y

awards:

awards:

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COLLABS

The Y takes over the city

We let the Y loose. Free "Y Donuts" went to morning commuters while the Y on Randy's giant rooftop donut got painted pink. We "misspelled" UCB and staged a rideshare-themed improv show with founders Matt Besser and Matt Walsh. At Life is Beautiful, a giant LED Y met everyone at the entrance. The quirk stopped being a logo detail and became something people could walk up to.

Randy's Donuts shop with its giant rooftop donut, painted pink for the Lyft Y campaign
Giant illuminated 'LYFT' light sculpture lit up at night, with the Y a focal point
Red neon Upright Citizens Brigade sign with the Y styled in Lyft pink
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Noel Tantinyà

Creative Director
"In today's world, where corporations are getting bigger, and marketers build their work based on data points and engineering efficiencies, it's hard for companies to come off as genuine and human. It takes someone that has an eye for telling inspiring stories to humanize a brand. Shachar is that type of creative.”
Street corner with a wall of pink Lyft Y wildposting posters and a passerby
OOH

Y in the wild

We took the Y to the street. Billboards and wildpostings carried the campaign across the city at full scale, turning a small letter into something you couldn't miss on a morning commute.

The system was built to flex, so as it rolled into new markets the identity kept evolving instead of freezing into one execution.

Roadside billboard with pink Lyft Y branding along a city street
IPO DAY

First out of the gate

2019 was the year of the tech unicorns, with Airbnb, Pinterest, Slack, and Uber all lining up to go public. Lyft went first. That made IPO day a rare chance to show the world that a newly public company could still be built around the public good. How we told that story mattered, and it took a cross-functional team across legal, finance, product, and marketing to pull it off.

Nasdaq tower in Times Square displaying Lyft's pink Y branding on IPO day
Lyft IPO event space with the Lyft logo on the wall, a car, and a Nasdaq LYFT podium
Hands holding a newspaper open to a pink Lyft IPO ad
Stage display of pink Lyft e-scooters and e-bikes with a 'Roll on' graphic and mountain backdrop
Team cheering at the Nasdaq podium branded LYFT on IPO day
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Fashion-style street photo of a person in black with a large pink Y overlaid
Brand photography

Lifestyle in the big city

City life, shot by the irreverent fashion photographer Wolfgang Zac.

Fashion-style street photo of a person on a Lyft bike holding a bunch of pastel balloons
Street photo of a stylish rider on a Lyft e-bike with a large pink Y overlaid
Street photo of a person carrying a brass tuba while crossing the road, a Lyft scooter nearby
Nightlife photo of people out together with a large pink Y overlaid
Street-cafe photo of friends at an outdoor table, one in a yellow dress
Nighttime photo of an arm reaching from a car window with a large pink Y overlaid
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Moody portrait of a person looking out a rain-streaked car window

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