Zipcar Is A Viral Vehicle

I’m an SF-dwelling motorcycle rider, so when I buy furniture on Craigslist, or need to pick up 300 T-shirts in Mountain View, I get a Zipcar.

For those of you not familiar with it, Zipcar is part of the growing car-sharing movement where you pay a membership fee and can rent cars in your neighborhood by the hour or by the day. The fee includes all gas, insurance, maintenance and parking. It’s great. Other car-share organizations include CityCarShare and Flexcar. Rates and terms vary slightly, but the best reason to pick one over the other is proximity to where you’ll want to pick a car up. Zipcar has two locations within 0.5 miles of me, the others are at least 1.5 miles away. For me it was a no-brainer.

I climbed into a Zipcar a few weeks ago and I found a cool DVD set in the glovebox. I figured someone had forgotten it and I would report the loss to lost-and-found later. But then I found one in each of the back seat pockets, and 5 more in the trunk.

What a great idea, I thought. Zipcars have a certain audience, with certain needs, living in a certain neighborhood. If you want those people to know about you, leave it in the car.

Other reasons I love Zipcar:

• A super-friendly, helpful, and playful attitude apparent in everything they do.
• whenever there is a new one, there is a contest to name it (Mini McEvoy, Matrix Miros, Tacoma Tokias, xA Adrian to name a few).
• “Under the Hood” is one of the best email newsletters I receive as far as design, tone, information quality, and entertainment.
• They make you feel like part of a community, and turn their members into advocates (just like me =)
• They ask for help. Whenever they need something, are having an event or have a cool idea, they ask for their members help. It makes all the difference.
• Killer discounts. Check out http://www.zipcar.com/sf/partners for stuff your “zipcard” will get you.
• $50 of free driving on signup.
• XM Radio in every car.

Technorati Tags: advertising, carshare, disruptive, guerilla media, zipcar