Through conducting a Big Data study, we were able to predict how many people would die on the roads during the upcoming Easter break (36). We were also able to locate them and get them to star in our campaign. Big Data was able to determine with a degree of certainty, the number of people who would die this Easter. And by doing so, it gave us the opportunity to help prevent it from happening.

Easter is a time of year when a huge amount of road trips are made in Spain. And the numbers of road accidents and fatalities continue to rise year after year. With this in mind, the Spanish Government, through the Dirección General de Tráfico (Department of Road Transport), proposed to launch an awareness campaign with the aim of bringing these figures down.

After several years in which road fatality numbers have done nothing but rise, Spain’s Department of Road Transport (DGT) was faced with the challenge of developing a campaign that would make a real impact and jolt Spaniards into driving more cautiously. This was about making an impact in a category whose audience is already accustomed to seeing shocking images like traffic accidents on DGT TV ads, and talking to them on a subject they already know about - the importance of safe driving - in a way that needs to be more relevant and personal.

We are used to getting bombarded with information about past victims of traffic accidents. The media in Spain typically provide exhaustive follow-up coverage on traffic accidents that occurred during different holiday periods such as Christmas, Summer and Easter. However, this has not proven to be successful. But, what if, instead of talking about past victims, we put faces to those who are going die on the roads this Easter? This gave us the idea of showing the Spanish population specific details and profiles of those people who would die on Spanish roads this Easter break, thanks to Big Data.

Instead of reporting on how many people died in previous years, we ran a campaign starring the individuals who, according to Big Data, would die during the upcoming Easter Week in Spain. Thanks to the Big Data study we were able to identify and locate who could, statistically, be the future victims of traffic accidents this Easter, and make them the protagonists of our campaign.

The campaign became one of the most successful communications for the brand in recent years. We were successful in bringing the entire population closer to the data provided by the study through different touch points (TV ad, print executions, documentary and website). In addition, we also achieved the objective set by the Spanish Government with this campaign, which was to reduce the total number of victims. Of the 36 estimated by Big Data, 7 lives were saved.

During holiday periods it is customary for the media in Spain to follow up on the movements of the population, reporting every day on how the situation on the roads is progressing and how the number of accidents and deaths due to traffic accidents is evolving.