When you think of the ride-hailing industry in the U.S.,?? ??? ?? two names should come to mind. But while Uber boasts name recognition for starting its own line of "Uber for" startups and a market valuation of a $68 billion, Lyft is the smaller company that claims to be quite satisfied with its place and trajectory.

SEE ALSO: Lyft's new TV ads take aim at Uber

How do you market an underdog? It helps when Uber is almost constantly fighting public relations battles, allowing Lyft to position itself as the warm and fuzzy alternative. In particular, Lyft emphasizes a friendly and supportive approach to both its passengers and its drivers. That's why the company touted new partnerships with Starbucks and Anheuser-Busch, for example, this year. Earlier this month, Lyft held a "Driver Appreciation Day," where the company matched tips for its drivers.

On Wednesday, Lyft revealed to Mashableits second annual list of top destinations known as the Lyftie Awards in its latest grab for your affection.

Mashablespoke with Melissa Waters, Lyft's vice president of marketing, about the awards and what they have planned for the next year. She currently serves as the head of marketing since the former Chief Marketing Officer Kira Wampler left for a new gig earlier this year. The interview below is lightly edited. 

You came to Lyft in October after leading brand marketing at Pandora for the last five years. Why did you join Lyft?

I have been just incredibly impressed and excited to join Lyft because of the momentum of the company and just how much growth the company is seeing and also the caliber of talent on the team.

We’re so early. We’re just stepping on the field of this game I would say, and so early in the future of ride-sharing and what it can mean to transform cities and people’s lives. I just feel like there’s tremendous opportunity to help lead this charge and grow the business and grow change for communities.

Did you know about the Lyftie Awards before you joined? When you were outside of the company, what did you think about them?

I just love the concept of the Lyftie Awards because when we think about every day where should we go and what should I do, when you’re meeting friends and wanting to find the hot trending places, the first place you often stop is reviews and what people have to say.

We all know the world of reviews. People oftentimes turn to reviews when you have something amazing to say or something really negative to say, not really when you’ve got that medium ground of feedback.

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So what I love about the Lyfties is it’s a great way of looking at the data and where people are going and less about what they have to say about it, more about, the proof is in the time spent and the choice of where they choose to spend their time. The data doesn’t lie, and it’s really fun to just look at how people are spending times in their communities and what’s trending in that perspective.

Are there any editorial decisions in the data?

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It is all data. This is our second year doing it. Last year we did 10 local markets and this year we’ve expanded the program to 24 markets. Last year we had one that was really strange. The drop-off point was a TCBY in Chicago, which it turns out even isn’t open. There are some times when people are using landmarks as a drop-off point but we kind of figure out that it’s because it’s right next to this transit station.

One of the winners in Philadelphia is a super seasonal place that’s on the river. They’re not even open in the winter time. We’re really coming at this using the real data. We want to reflect the way people are actually moving through cities.

Did you notice any trends in terms of the most visited places?

I think they really reflect the local flavor of every city. The trends that we are seeing is how much Lyft is being used in transportation and being used for travel. The uptick in airport usage, the uptick in hotel and destination usage is significant for us. We’ve seen tremendous impact in airports. We’ve more than doubled our rides in the past year.

LAX has passed SFO to be our busiest airport on a per ride basis

LAX has passed SFO to be our busiest airport on a per ride basis,and at the end of the year, we’ll be offered in 96 airports throughout the country, and we know we got a ton of momentum next year going into our airport business and same can be said for our hotels.

Vegas has been a great case study for us, total rides grew by over 8x year over year.

[It's a] great moment on travel and being part of people’s lives whether they’re in their home market or in a market in which they’re traveling to. It really speaks to the ubiquity of Lyft around the country.

What’s up next for 2017?

2016 I would characterize as the year of momentum, and 2017 it really feels like we’re poised to capitalize on that growth and continue to expand our service not only into more markets but also into more and more products.

We very much feel like we’re a part of people’s every day lives, and you’re going to continue to see Lyft hit home our ubiquity in the U.S. We're also looking forward to rolling out the Amp.

Oh, great, yup my colleague Emma was at the launch event. Are those available yet?

We’re doing our soft launch on New Years Eve in Las Vegas and San Francisco, and they will continue to rollout in the entirety of the first quarter and rolling them out to our drivers.

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We just went through the process of getting in touch with our drivers for the sign-up to receive the AMP, and we had over 90 percent return on getting them to fill out the form. So the driver community is so excited to see these which speaks to our great driver engagement, how much they love working with us and how much they’re eager to represent our brand on the ride.

We know that it’s not only a great way to associate yourself with Lyft, but it’s also really solving pain points for the driver and the passenger in the moments of pickup. We feel like it’s a great branding opportunity but also a tremendous utility for our passengers and our drivers.

I'm excited to see them too, but I know Uber just announced their own version. So we're going to see a lot of different products in cars now.

Right.

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