hiyacar
Innovation
Freedom at your fingertips.
SomeOne has been working with hiyacar™ — one of the UK’s fastest growing brands in the sharing economy.
Hiyacar is the new car sharing brand that is changing the hire care sector in the UK.
The team has developed a brand that’s made to move, a digitally native design system that’s strategically-led and visually compelling, for a new generation of drivers less interested in ownership and more attracted to access.
2018 Best Branding — Creative Pool Awards
2018 Best Brand Agency in the World — Best Brand Awards
The Story
Graeme Risby and Rob Larmour met aged 16 behind the meat counter in their local supermarket, where they both worked.
They bumped into each other again by chance years later at a summer fete in Maidstone, and the idea for hiyacar was born.
Car fiend Graeme worked long hours in the City and knew his car cost him money just to sit on his drive, doing nothing. Not so much an asset, more of a liability.
With the help of e-commerce expert Rob, the pair realised that a car-sharing app (an ‘AirBnB for cars’) might offer a smarter, more environmentally friendly way for people in Britain to hire the 10 million cars rented here every year.
The pair began work in August 2014, and it soon became clear that the obstacle to unlocking the value in people’s cars was simple: the keys, and the time it took to hand them over.
The team worked on an app-controlled box which allowed users to unlock cars direct from the app. The QuickStart box was born.
The Market Context
‘Hiring a car is painful.
The paperwork. The visit to the remote office. The inevitable up-sell.
The delays and waiting around.
And of course, the inevitable hidden fee’s you get clobbered with for that ‘scratch’ they find on the door when you take it back.
Or extra mileage. Or fuel. Or…
Well, you get the picture’
The Strategy
The time had come to develop a new strategic brand to better explain the benefits of the brands approach to mobility. The team at SomeOne worked with the founders and senior management to design a new strategic operating system for the organisation based on ‘Freedom at your fingertips’.
Hiyacar is set to become more of a movement than simply a platform to find a convenient ride. The freedom it affords people is what we set out to amplify with the new brand work. It’s a brand made to move.
The Design
‘Most hire car branding is based on a single colour and a single static word mark…
Hiyacar takes the opposite approach.
A multicoloured palette of choice, with animated elements as standard, after all, this is a digitally-led service, so things should flex, adapt and move.’
Laura Hussey, Creative Partner, SomeOne.
The Impact
Everytime a Hiyacar is hired, it can take the equivalent of 11 vehicles off the road. While the economies of scale and sharing are clear, people are getting more out of it too… they are getting to know their neighbours, finding that people are lovely…
Hiya owners add personal touches, such as putting ribbons on a car for a wedding. It’s a new way to drive, and something we’re very proud of.
The Advertising
Alongside the new visual and verbal branding, the team at SomeOne created an entirely new advertising campaign for the brand, running across social, digital and out of home channels. Based on the new strategy of ‘Freedom at your fingertips’.
It’s been so exciting to see our organisation and intentions so well captured by the new branding, the team at SomeOne have done us proud, we’re now ready to take on the biggest year in our history.