‘Everyone’s got their inner Nudgy’: Didi does ‘unhinged’ in new brand platform
Didi has launched a new brand platform, designed to be “both unsettling and unforgettable”, via Sunday Gravy.
‘Yes I DiDi’ hopes to encourage Aussies and Kiwis to say yes more, using the rideshare app’s cheap rides to spend their money elsewhere and enjoy a night out. It features frontman ‘Nudgy’, described as a “mischievous, flute-playing character” who shows up right when you’re about to call it a night.
“Nudgy is quite a force actually, he’s got such a presence that you’re drawn to him,” Ant White, co-founder and COO of Sunday Gravy, told Mumbrella. “Everyone’s got their inner Nudgy, that side of them that wants to go out, or they have a friend who encourages them to go out. So this character had to embody that slightly unhinged, naughty side.”
Before the campaign officially launched over the weekend, unbranded footage from the shoot was posted online to Tiktok and Instagram, amassing over 50 million views, according to Sunday Gravy.
“No one knew it was from a brand which was probably the strength of it,” White said. “The comments were fascinating because it’s almost like they knew the strategy that we’d all discussed, about making people want to go out, be at this particular bar. But it was fun because it was seeded into culture first, and now we’ve launched, we’ve got an engaged audience that can almost take ownership of it themselves too.”
The ‘fever dream’ feeling of the creative, led by a three-and-a-half minute hero film, was a deliberate choice: “We wanted it to feel a bit surreal and hazy, like when you reflect back on one of the best nights you’ve ever had, where nothing quite makes sense.
“There are things in there that are quite deliberately disarming, but they’re memorable,” White said.
The hero film was directed by UK filmmaker Jim Hosking, whose “absurdist visual style” was a match for Sunday Gravy’s vision, according to White: “We just wanted to push this as far as possible, but still within reason.”
He said the rideshare category is one that’s hard to sell, because you can’t necessarily sell the experience. As a result, brands must be willing to think outside the box. What Didi instead decided to capitalise on was its cost compared to its competitors.
“We offer the chance for people to go out, to get from A to B. And where we’re going to win is we’re cheaper, so people can do more at the other end,” he explained. “Coming up with ‘Yes I DiDi’ was such an honest moment, and we hope it takes on the vernacular of ‘I’ll Uber it’.”
He said Didi’s marketing head Tim Farmer and the team were “extremely brave” as a client, despite some initial uneasiness.
“When we presented things, they were obviously uncomfortable,” White told Mumbrella. “Because we really were pushing it. But we had committed, and we didn’t put guardrails on ourselves to water it down at any point.”
Designed for flexibility, the “modern” structure of the platform hopes to allow for a longstanding brand platform, where iterations can be made to align with key cultural and social moments.
The campaign is live across usual channels in Australia and New Zealand. The song has also been released on Spotify.
Credits:
Agency: Sunday Gravy
Production Company: Hooves
Director: Jim Hosking
Producer: Renae Begent
Executive Producer: John Pace
DOP: Jeremy Rouse
Editor: Mark Burnett / The Editors
Casting Director: Natalie Jane Harvie / Citizen Jane Casting
Costume Design: Liv Simpson
Art Director: Sam Lukins
Prosthetics, Hair and Makeup Design: Odd Studio, Anastasia Pappas
Grade: Fergus Rotherham
Online: Eugene Richards
Music & Sound Design: Electric Sheep
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Lauren McNamara was the associate editor at Mumbrella. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS. She left Mumbrella in August 2025.
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