Car sharing was getting strong grounds in the United States and western part of Europe. At the same time Citybee was establishing its presence in Lithuania. There were lessons and insights from other markets to apply yet a cultural aspect in the region was to be unravelled. In particular, how to increase loyalty among users and where to focus next.

Our team divided into groups to explore the history, usability cases and trends in car sharing industry. The research navigated to a phenomenon of sharing in general and car culture elements within countries.
It became obvious that sharing is a sacred action and has its structure behind. One can give and receive something but sharing requires trust and recommendations. It takes time to start really sharing. And at the same time such activity creates a bond and loyalty between parties involved.

After going deeper and connecting the dots the picture revealed itself. Car sharing pioneer was understood by people as a car rental service for short trips. It needed to form a strong identity based on community building principles.

Its current model had to become the individual public transportation. An insight was made when ethnographic research showed users' habits similar to transaction, not sharing.

Sharing was a buzz word to attract customers of a particular target audience yet not to create loyalty, as it had no merit in people's minds. Therefore, forming a community and underlining access to infrastructure (not just talking about sharing) was a path that this company took so far.

photo credit: CityBee