What exactly is a Super App?

Careem is the region’s everyday Super App: the first multi-vertical technology platform in our region – one single, unified smartphone app catering to people’s local, daily needs. Our Super App provides services across three areas:

• Mobility of people – everything we do to move people and get them to where they want to go.
• Mobility of things – getting people the things they need when they need them.
• Financial services ‘money transfer’ – a single, safe and secure payments system for all our services.

The Super App will reduce time spent looking for the right app and make it easy for customers to jump between services – all in one place.

How do you market a Super App brand?

Noha Zeid: The most important thing is to showcase to our customers what is in it for them and what is the value proposition we offer as Careem, which is simplifying their everyday hassles by providing them with a one-stop-shop to their everyday needs. At the same time, they get rewarded through Careem Rewards with each and every transaction that can be redeemed for a variety of benefits and discounts on Careem Super App.

Haya Kalbouneh: This comes in two folds. The first is, people don’t know what a Super App is yet. Our role is to build meaning around what a Super App is that enables our audience to see the value in it. The second is to showcase the reasons why they should use it and how it benefits them both functionally and emotionally. This thinking was anchored in our big brand idea ‘Everyday life, made simple.’

The campaign we launched uses real moments in people’s everyday lives to show how Careem takes care of the things that take time or hold them back from what really matters. The creative focuses on our main use cases: Ride, Food, Order Anything, Delivery, and Careem Pay, while getting rewarded every step of the way.

How much of the Covid-19 crisis is a cause for this move and what are the other drivers?

N.Z.: The crisis helped us realize that our customers want a place to get their daily essentials, which in turn pushed us to speed the launch of the Super App. The Careem Super App is our big bet for the year and the pandemic has accelerated the shift. We are getting back to our entrepreneurial roots: ruthless focus on the customer.

We have identified a strong need in the market for easy access to services, especially for deliveries. Hence, we accelerated the rollout of the Super App to bring essential services to customers, as simple as possible, at this difficult time.

H.K.: During the crisis, consumer behaviour has shifted towards openness for new technology. Launching the Super App at this time promises a curiosity as well as a fast adoption rate.

What is the strategy behind the development of the super app?

N.Z.: Today’s consumers are spending over 85% of their time on their smartphones using native applications, but the majority of their time is spent using just five non-native apps they’ve installed from the App Store. Those five apps will vary from person to person. For some, their top five could include social media or gaming, while others may spend more time in instant messaging.

H.K.: By having a single ecosystem we expect greater penetration in a consumer’s day-to-day as well as the ability to both cross-sell and up-sell customers in our own ecosystem, generating greater GMV per customer. Features such as loyalty create an added incentive to stay in the Careem ecosystem and as we slowly increase the reasons to stay, we expect both customer retention and the lifetime value of our customers to increase.

From a marketing perspective, would you distinguish between the different services at some point or would you remain focused on promoting the Super App, and why?

N.Z.: While the Super App will be the main communication platform for mature Careem markets like the UAE, there will always be a need to attract and communicate with single service users to whom we can still promote a specific service.

H.K.: Building awareness that Careem is more than a ride-hailing company but a Super App brand that offers multiple services in one place that makes their everyday life simpler will be key. However, to help drive consideration and usage adoption, it is important to promote single services that are most relevant to each audience segment and how they benefit them, noting that our services may differ from one market to the other as we tailor our offerings to cater to local needs.