It was time to unleash the power of data to steal shares from cars. Consumers needed to be convinced by real-time information at the moment it mattered the most: when they were stuck in the traffic. What’s more annoying for a driver than waste time in traffic congestion?

We initiated the conversation when we knew they were going to travel a long distance, showing them that their projected arrival time was longer than expected (and probably longer than traveling by train).

If they decided to take their cars anyway, our real time traffic feed was activated as they are driving down a busy highway. And we reminded them how bad was their travel to their final destination shortly after they arrived.

We targeted drivers at all phases of the targeted consumers’ trip:

Before

We identified drivers about to travel by targeting those who looked up for weather or traffic information for a destination outside their home town with digital banners and SEM communicating real-time travel times for car versus train.

In addition, we also programmed the bids so that VIARail could capture 100% SOV during these moments of truth.

During

We targeted drivers stuck in traffic on the highways connecting the major cities, within the market covered by VIARail. With digital out-of-home, we covered all of the major highways between Quebec City and Toronto. The message was adapted in real-time, displaying the estimated arrival time based on the location of each sign and current traffic conditions. Because it was based on the geo-location of each board, the message was always customized.

After

We leveraged our out-of-home partnership to collect all the mobile deviceIDs of drivers exposed to the advertising as well as drivers who were stuck in traffic jams. We then re-targeted these drivers as they arrived at their destination, displaying a personalized message that reminded them of the frustration of being in traffic and the benefits of taking the train.

VIA Rail succeed at stealing shares to what seemed an unbeatable competition: car! Train ridership rose by 11.7% year-over-year, and revenues increased by 13.9%, to the expense of cars.

All of our media tactics greatly outperformed the usual standards. Contextualized messages generated click rates that were 95% higher than all of our display and mobile campaigns, and they helped increase the conversion rate by 14% on VIA Rail's booking engine.

Finally, over 1.5 million unique mobile device IDs were collected in our DMP, increasing the volume of audiences we can activate in our always-on campaigns.

The entire planning and execution of this campaign relied on the smart use of real time data to reach travellers at 3 stages of a commute: before, during and after. In fact, we used data to initially identify potential travelers to serve personalized digital banners and search ads during their pre-trip phase. Afterwards, we leveraged the data from real-time “time to destination” on digital billboards. We then collected all 1.5 million unique mobile device IDs of the people who saw the digital billboard in order to retarget them later after they were stuck in traffic.

The campaign strategy was to leverage real-time traffic and weather data to maximize the relevance of the message for motorists. We compared real-time travel information for both transportation options: when traffic or bad weather conditions arise, drivers were reminded they took the wrong transportation mode.

Partnerships with Google Maps and the Weather Network made our data strategy come to life. We created programming interfaces specifically for this campaign and integrated the data feed at each touch point, enabling the real-time data management and synchronization across all out-of-home and digital channels.

Our challenge was to provide drivers with real-time traffic information on each of the 16 stretches of highways covered by VIA Rail. At any given point in time, the message was customized to each consumer. It took into consideration their current geo-position, their predicted end destination and real-time traffic and weather data.

The success of our strategy hinged on the relevance and quality of the information we communicated. It became useful information to drivers, allowing VIA Rail to breakthrough the perception screen of car lovers.

In the markets covered by VIA Rail, Canada's national rail passenger service, the car is the fastest option when the road conditions are ideal. Most of the time however, when traffic and bad weather get in the way, the train becomes the best solution.

When consumers plan a trip from Point A to Point B, their primary concern is to have the shortest travel time. This is a global truth, but it is especially powerful in Canada because its vast territories can make travel time even longer.

Because of their unconditional love of cars, drivers tend to be overly optimistic about how long it actually takes to get somewhere by car, failing to factor real-time road conditions into their calculations.