Lyft’s First National TV Ad Is a Cutesy Attack on Car Ownership

San Francisco-based ride app company Lyft will run its first national television spot Monday, a cute and hyperbolic appeal for you to stop owning a car and be a passenger instead.

The 60-second spot seeks to highlight all the obnoxious things that drivers do (e.g. putting on makeup, driving drunk), as well as all the obnoxious things that can happen when you’re the one with the car (e.g. getting in a wreck, having a ticket slapped under your windshield wiper). And, just in case you weren’t feeling their adorable-chaos vibe, the creative team threw in a few zoo animals for good measure.

For many people outside big cities, the spot will be an introduction to Lyft’s sales pitch: while larger rival Uber might seem cool and elite, customers should consider Lyft the friendly, approachable alternative.

And it is in line with the strategy that company executives have espoused since the beginning: that selling new users on peer-to-peer rides is really about getting more people into fewer cars and therefore lessening the transportation evils (congestion, emissions) that we’re all contributing to when we drive around alone.