We were tasked with translating bushfire awareness into immediate behavioural action in one of the most fire prone regions in the world: Victoria, Australia.

Our challenge was to simultaneously educate and warn Victorians of the dangers of bushfires in regional Victoria, grassfires on Melbourne’s urban fringe, as well as caution travellers planning interstate travel. In this instance with lives at risk, failure was not an option.

Most importantly, whatever ‘warning’ people found had to be relevant, up to date and accurate. This meant we had to come up with a ‘data first’ solution.

The campaign success hinged on serving the right message to the right user at the right time. We used location based targeting to serve each district within regional areas and urban fringe communities with the relevant alert ad.

Using a mobile network location based targeting system and a distinctive combination of Wi-Fi and telco signal strength, we mapped out locations. This helped us accurately identify the user’s location within the CFA fire districts. We then over laid this data with MCN ID targeting which uses aggregated Telstra subscriber data (age, gender and postcode data) cross referenced with Experian and Roy Morgan data. Using both publishers enabled us to accurately serve the right message to the right person.