How Lyft and United Airlines Are Building the Case for Mobility as a Media Category

This post was created in partnership with Lyft Ads

When Liz Kneebone, vp of community programs and development at ADWEEK, left for Cannes this week, she almost didn’t make it. A World Cup match had gridlocked New York City traffic, her Lyft rerouted her to the PATH train, and a United flight out of Newark held its doors just long enough for her to board with a minute to spare. 

It was, as she told an audience at Cannes Lions aboard the IRCODE yacht at Cannes Lions, a perfect demonstration of how consumers engage with brands through journeys.

“My trip to Cannes would not have happened without the seamless experience of how [these two brands] work together,” Kneebone said.

“That’s such a real use case,” said Shane Dwyer, vp of advertiser solutions at Lyft Ads, who co-hosted the panel with Julia Fedor, director of brand marketing operations at United Airlines. “We all use rideshare, so we all understand it.”

The session, part of ADWEEK House Cannes Lions’ Yacht Row programming, centered on a simple premise: The moments people spend in transit—in a rideshare or on a plane—represent an underutilized media channel. Both Lyft and United are betting heavily on that premise, and increasingly, together.

A partnership built on shared data and shared users

The Lyft-United relationship predates the two companies’ ad businesses working together. United’s MileagePlus members have been able to earn United miles on Lyft rides for several years, but the two companies recently announced what Dwyer called version “2.0” of the partnership that now allows travelers to redeem United miles directly to pay for Lyft rides.

“We’re starting to look at the…interoperability between the currency of…membership loyalty programs,” Dwyer said. “About 20% of our rides layer into travel-based rides. The travel angle of rideshare is so important.”

For United, the partnership makes strategic sense at scale. Fedor told the audience that United became the world’s largest airline a few years ago, flying 175 million customers across nearly 5,000 daily flights to more than 380 destinations last year. That volume generates substantial first-party data, making United an attractive media partner.

“To get through an airport and onboard a plane, you have to have a government ID, your passport, your Real ID,” Fedor said. “So we know that our data is solid. We have over 100 different attributes and demographic information about our customers.”

The rideshare moment

At the center of Lyfts’ pitch to marketers is what Dwyer describes as a uniquely receptive consumer. Lyft users spend an average of about 24 minutes in the app per ride. This is the window the company has built an advertising product around.

“Everyone knows that rideshare moment where you leave kind of a chaotic household and you get in your car and you’re like, oh my gosh, this is awesome,” Dwyer said. “There are no expectations of me right now, right? And in that moment, we’ve built a really unique advertising product when people are hyper receptive, when people are going out, when people have those kinds of dopamine and serotonin spikes that are happening.”

For United, that window has proved measurable. The airline has been running in-app advertising within Lyft targeting travelers already in a travel mindset, serving carousel ads highlighting routes, lounges, and loyalty perks to riders on their way to the airport.

“We’ve seen great view rates, clickthrough rates, people following through to go to United.com and maybe even start searching for their next flight,” Fedor said.

Building a new category

Both Fedor and Dwyer were candid that mobility media doesn’t yet have a fixed place in most brands’ budgets. Therefore, establishing it as a recognized investment category is part of the work.

“This is not a social media category that’s been planted in the ground for 15 years,” Dwyer said. “It’s not search. It is travel media. It is mobility media.” Dwyer’s goal is that when brands are planning for next year, there is already a mobility media line item in the budget, along with  production and creative strategies built around how to talk to people when they’re on the move.

Getting there, he said, required years of listening. “The first couple of years we were literally just talking to as many partners as we could and saying, ‘What do you need us to do? How do you need to measure? What tech do you need us to utilize?’”

That process is now shifting toward building. Fedor hinted at a product in development, focused specifically on the New York market, designed to help United make the case for Newark as a preferred departure point for Manhattan-based travelers.

Newark is an hour closer than JFK for New Yorkers who live on the West Side, Dwyer said. “That market insight can change consumer behavior. Once you realize that and you do it once, that’s all it takes.”

Looking ahead

United is celebrating its 100th year of operation this year as well as embarking on an ambitious product roadmap. That roadmap includes a full fleet rollout of Starlink Wi-Fi, which Fedor described as a potential inflection point for the brand.

“Through a lot of consumer research, we found that one of the most motivating factors for people when they’re flying is they want reliable, fast Wi-Fi,” she said. United was the first major airline to partner with Starlink, and expects half its fleet to be equipped by the end of this year. The full rollout is expected to be completed by the end of 2027.

For Lyft, the company’s upcoming initiatives include geographic expansion. The company recently acquired Free Now, a taxi app operating across 180 European cities, and Get UK, extending its footprint into London. Lyft is also expanding with autonomous vehicles through partnerships with Waymo and Baidu, and moving into more upmarket territory with the acquisition of luxury chauffeur service TBR.

“Very excited for smooth travel home through both of your fantastic organizations,” Kneebone said, in closing. “And maybe next year the boat moves.”