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In Branding Makeover, Lyft Lessens 'Friendly' Focus, Drops Fuzzy Mustache

This article is more than 9 years old.

A friendly face may help a startup get off the ground. But to build a nationwide business, a company needs more than just friends -- it needs new customers.

Lyft, the ride-hailing company that once proudly touted 3-foot-wide furry pink mustaches, doesn't want to be "your friend with a car" anymore, like it called itself when it launched in San Francisco in 2012. In fact, it's been working behind the scenes for the past year to be less friendly, less fuzzy, less fistbump -- all so that potential new customers feel comfortable, not pressured.

"Jesse's team has been working like crazy on this," said Lyft cofounder and CEO Logan Green said Tuesday, referring to Jesse McMillin, the company's new creative director that was hired from Virgin America in July. McMillin and recent key hires like chief marketing officer Kira Wampler are focused on one delicate task: adjust the company's overly friendly traditions, which might have turned off potential customers.

"A huge misconception that we're trying to clear up is that you have to sit in the front seat," said Green, sitting across from Wampler in a sunny room at Lyft's outer Mission District headquarters. "And the second piece is the mustache. No more furry mustache."

The last big, furry mustache shipped months ago, Green said. It "obviously had issues -- it was a great symbol for Lyft, but it didn't weather well," he said. The mustache's successors embody how Lyft's brand has changed in the past year. Last fall, the mustaches shrank -- still furry and soft, but now the size of a banana. This week, the mustache hardened into Glowstaches -- sleek, plastic, dashboard-mounted mustaches that beam a discreet light at night. McMillin and others -- including Ethan Eyler, the original creator of the fuzzy mustache -- have been working on the glowing mustache for a year, Green said.

"Our ambition -- to bring people together and revamp how transportation works -- is so big, we can't be limited to the part of the market that wanted to be social in the front seat," Green said. "That's a big part of this campaign."

Wampler piped up. "We thought a lot about the word friendly," she said. "We felt like friendly only told one part of the story."

If not friendly, then what? The nationwide ad campaign, which debuts this week, highlights "memorable," "affordable," and "welcoming." Inviting, but not too narrow.

"The visual we had was, it's cold outside and you're walking down the street and you see a nicely lit bar with a little fireplace, and you're like, 'Ooh, I want to go in there -- it looks welcoming,'" Wampler said.

As rival Uber continues to make headlines for sheer growth, in number of countries and blockbuster valuations, Lyft is still pushing its more intangible qualities. Wampler compared the company to Southwest Airlines or Virgin America, the kind of brand that can crack jokes that would draw silence on a United flight.

Green also says Lyft's unique driver onboarding process helps maintain its sense of community, especially in new markets. All Lyft drivers meet face-to-face with a Lyft "mentor," or top driver, before they begin driving. The mentor gives the driver a quick orientation and does a vehicle inspection and driving test, and is paid a set amount per appointment. Green says it's "the special sort of ingredient" in scaling their driver community.

Uber has taken notice. This month in Atlanta, it began testing UberPro, a program that pays top drivers $20 to do a 15-minute in-person onboarding for new applicants, according to emails it has sent drivers.

Green was doubtful that a driver mentor program would have as much of an effect for Uber as it did for Lyft. "It's about scaling your community, and Uber doesn't really have a community," he said. "Uber's about plain vanilla professionalism. You look at their drivers, and their experience is a commodity, which is very different from Lyft. I don't know if their mentor session has very much value because they're not trying to spread a community ethos."

Green wouldn't say whether Lyft is raising more venture capital funding, as Re/code reported earlier this month. "All we can say is there's a lot of investor excitement about what Lyft is doing," he said. He was also coy about growth numbers: the company said it grew five times in revenue and ride volume in 2014, and also said it gained market share from Uber over the course of the year, but wouldn't specify beyond relative numbers. Lyft is profitable in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle -- five of its most mature markets, he said.

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