Uber will let advertisers tinker with the map, one of its ‘most prized brand assets’

In a rideshare? You’re probably watching the map, keeping a keen eye on the car icon as you move closer to your desired destination.

If that rideshare happens to be an Uber, that map and its icons are now up for grabs for some advertisers.

It’s all part of a new offering from the company, dubbed Journey Takeovers, which gives advertisers the ability to create full brand experiences, complete with ads, on the tablets in cars, in the app, and, now, within the map, all at the same time.

“We’re covering every angle of where people are looking,” Kristi Argyilan, global head of Uber Advertising, told Marketing Brew at CES. “We already have, on average, about 20 minutes of someone’s attention when they’re in an Uber…Now we’re actually connecting one of our most prized brand assets that we have, which is the map, which is where we all really stare when we’re in the car.”

The aim, Argyilan explained, is for the experience to be additive and contextually relevant to wherever the rider is headed, as well as timed to specific cultural events. There’s already some proof of concept: During this past holiday season, Coca-Cola ran a takeover campaign that popped up when riders were on their way to places where they could likely purchase Coke products, including restaurants, grocery stores, and sporting events.

The company worked with Uber’s in-house agency, Creative Studio, to create icons that would speak to the specific markets where it was shown. For example, riders in Spain, Portugal, and the United States saw a Coca-Cola Christmas caravan; riders in Mexico got to see Santa’s sleigh; and riders in Australia and New Zealand saw a Kombi van.

Oh so iconic: Uber has tweaked its map icons before, but those were largely designed to highlight its own brand marketing efforts (like if the company had sponsored Formula 1, it might’ve made the Uber icon into a Formula 1 car if a rider was en route to the race, Argyilan explained.) Now, as Uber continues to grow its ad network, with an average revenue run rate of $1.5 billion as of early 2025, the company is allowing brands to tinker with the map icons as part of this larger brand experience ad offering.

Contextual relevance: The goal of the new features, Argyilan said, is to support more interactive and complex experiences that may be contextually relevant to consumers. “We’re getting past this, ‘What’s the CPM? How many impressions? What’s the reach and frequency?’ to really understand, ‘How am I creating a contextually relevant moment between a consumer and my brand?’” she said. “For us to be able to bring all of these really rich assets together in these kinds of programs, we’re finding just a ton of marketplace interest in it.”

Speaking of CPMs, interested advertisers can expect the cost to vary based on the idea, elements, and execution, considering that advertisers may have specific ideas about how they want the Journey Takeover ad experience to look.

“What we’re seeing from a consumer perspective is that people are not necessarily excited about ads as much as they are about experiences,” Argyilan said. “And this is one of very few digital experiences that can be this immersive.”