Uber cancels promotion featuring free rides from ‘hot chicks’
The promotion was meant to warm up French customers to the service, but when American websites caught wind of it, Uber shut it down.
Uber is having a hard time making inroads in France.
French authorities have slapped the car ride service with a €100,000 fine for being an unregulated taxi service and have threatened other restrictions.
Uber’s plan to dig itself out of that hole involved giving people in the city of Lyon free, 20-minute rides in cars driven by models. The company paired up with a website and app called “Avions de Chasse” (the French term for “fighter jets,” which is a slang equivalent to “hot chicks”) to launch the promotion. Customers were invited to enter the code “UBERAVIONS” into the Uber app to get picked up by a model.
Buzzfeed caught wind of the promotion and immediately called out the language in the company’s blog post about it as “sexist.” The post, which has been deleted, reportedly asked, “Who said women don’t know how to drive?”
Uber canceled the promotion and apologized Wednesday. In an email statement to CNN, a spokesman for the company said, “It was a clear misjudgment by the local team.”
Become a Ragan Insider member to read this article and all other archived content.
Sign up today
Already a member? Log in here.
Learn more about Ragan Insider.
