Martech: Martech is Marketing Logo
  • Topics
    Digital Transformation
    Marketing Operations
    Data
    Customer & Digital Experience
    Performance Marketing
    Marketing Management
    Special Reports
    All Topics
  • Conference
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • What is MarTech

Processing...Please wait.

MarTech » Customer & Digital Experience » With Celebrity Directions Waze Becomes Vehicle For “Ride Along” Film Promotion

With Celebrity Directions Waze Becomes Vehicle For “Ride Along” Film Promotion

Last week, Universal Pictures announced that comedian Kevin Hart would be “the very first celebrity voice featured in U.S. versions of [Waze].” Universal is hoping to use the tie-in to promote an upcoming film in which Hart is starring, called “Ride Along.” Ride Along also stars rapper-actor Ice Cube and appears aimed primarily at African-American […]

Greg Sterling on November 25, 2013 at 8:35 am | Reading time: 2 minutes

Waze logoLast week, Universal Pictures announced that comedian Kevin Hart would be “the very first celebrity voice featured in U.S. versions of [Waze].” Universal is hoping to use the tie-in to promote an upcoming film in which Hart is starring, called “Ride Along.”

Ride Along also stars rapper-actor Ice Cube and appears aimed primarily at African-American US audiences, but with potentially broader appeal. Google acquired Waze for approximately $1.3 billion in June after a failed acquisition attempt by Facebook.

Google bought Waze in part to tap its community of engaged users and help improve the real-time and “ground truth” accuracy of Google Maps. Another motivation was pretty clearly to keep Waze out of the hands of rivals Facebook or Apple.

The social mapping app currently allows “Wazers” to select from among several voices for turn-by-turn directions and instructions. In addition to the newly added Kevin Hart voice, users can choose from “Samantha,” “Tom,” “Boy Band,” “Nathan,” “Elvis” or simply “default.”

Getting to these voices takes several clicks and is not entirely intuitive. You need to go to Settings –> Sound –> English and then select “Ride Along.”

Waze voices

It’s not immediately clear whether Waze is planning to approach other celebrities or whether Universal will try and promote other stars, shows and films using Waze. This may be a relatively unique situation where the theme of the promoted film and Waze are logically connected.

I imagine this is an experiment for both Waze and Universal, accordingly. However the broader idea of increasing the number of novelty voice choices for Waze users is probably appealing to the community.

Even if very few Wazers actually switch to Hart media coverage, the option has probably already raised the profile of the 2014 movie. That’s undoubtedly the primary objective for Universal.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


New on MarTech

    Welcome emails have best click-to-open and first purchase rates
    It’s time for CMOs to talk business
    Webinar: The key to email marketing success
    The FTC weighs in on customer data privacy
    Whatever happened to customer journey orchestration?

About The Author

Greg Sterling
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land, a member of the programming team for SMX events and the VP, Market Insights at Uberall.

Related Topics

Customer & Digital ExperiencePerformance Marketing

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS The MarTech Conference logo.

September 28-29, 2022: Fall

Start Training Now: Master Classes

Start Discovering Now: Spring



The SMX Conference logo.

Start Training Now:: SMX Advanced

November 14-15, 2022: SMX Next

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes

Webinars

Tracking Growth From Organic Search

Beyond the Buzzword: Transform Digitally to Drive Organic & SEO Growth

Leap or Linger: Determining Which Ad Platforms to Test for Your B2B Brand

See More Webinars
Intelligence Reports

Enterprise Marketing Performance Management Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Customer Journey Orchestration Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Account-Based Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports
Featured White Paper

The CMO’s Formula To 3x Your Digital Marketing Campaign Results

See More Whitepapers
Search Our Site

Receive daily marketing news & analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • Transformation
  • Operations
  • Data
  • Experience
  • Performance
  • Management
  • All Topics
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX

About

  • What is MarTech
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.