The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2024–2025
Careem Beach gives every spot in the sand a GPS address — 10K downloads in week one
Careem docks QR-scannable GPS umbrellas at UAE beaches so riders can deliver food to a precise spot in the sand.
Careem
What it had to solve
Careem needed a new customer stream for its delivery business; beaches were a huge daytime audience with no way to receive orders.
How it works
Beaches are full of hungry people, yet delivery apps largely skip them: there are no addresses in the sand, so riders cannot find a customer. Careem's answer was to give the beach an address system — GPS-enabled umbrellas docked at beach entrances that unlock through the Careem app and tell the delivery captain exactly where to go.
Announced at GITEX in October 2024 and rolled out across UAE beaches in 2025, Careem Beach made a previously unreachable market physically orderable. The Dubai Lynx winners spotlight records the results: more than 10,000 app downloads in beach areas and over 4,000 orders at beach locations in the first week alone, with customers who experienced the service 1.7x more likely to return.
The campaign's own output was the product. At the 2025 Dubai Lynx festival, Careem Beach took the Grand Prix in Outdoor, beating conventional billboard and OOH work with a utility that changed where and how people could consume.
Why it lands
- The insight came from a real service gap: no address system exists on a beach, so the entire market was unreachable.
- The umbrella is both media and utility — it advertises Careem while making delivery physically possible.
- Results are measurable per unit: downloads, orders at beach locations, and repeat behavior all rose.
- It belongs to the product itself, so the campaign keeps working as long as the service exists.
What it did
Over 10,000 app downloads in beach areas and 4,000+ orders at beach locations in the first week; customers who tried it were 1.7x more likely to return — and the service won the 2025 Dubai Lynx Outdoor Grand Prix.
What you can take
Instead of buying awareness, invent the missing utility: solve the one place the product category can't reach, and the service itself becomes the ad.
Since then
Careem planned to extend the service to major beaches across the UAE through 2025, turning the pilot into a permanent delivery channel rather than a one-off stunt.
Sources
- Winners Spotlight — Careem Beach
- Careem soon-to-launch campaign offers customers "an address in the sand"
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