Our idea was to use SAS Viya for a real project that highlights all aspects of Advanced Analytics by answering a question anybody can relate to: What is the best place in the world? In short, we’re showing the power of analytics software by simply using it.

As a result, PARADISE FOUND is not just another city ranking based on editorial choices and limited statistics. It’s the world's most comprehensive and first entirely objective city ranking, applying an unbiased self-learning algorithm on top of massive amounts of data.

Moreover, the exclusive algorithm should not only find the best place according to standard attributes but also discover new and surprising criteria like the "ratio of sidewalks". That’s why we combined geo-data with content from social networks, blogs etc. and let the algorithm itself discover the hidden patterns that define the most livable places.

The best place on Earth according to our self-learning algorithm and 5 million data points is West Perth in Australia. Because we used the SAS software to build the algorithm and performed all analytic processes we had an actual “real life” use case and not just a mere advertising campaign. The process and the usage of the SAS tools were documented on the comprehensive campaign website that also included several video interviews with analytics experts.

To reach a wider business audience and the millennial demographic, we turned the completely unforeseeable result into a highly targeted digital multi-channel campaign, including display-ads on IT-business related websites as well as videos, posts on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

Finally, we even launched an exclusive "SAS Paradise Configurator" that uses portions of the data and criteria to let everybody find their very own best place on Earth according to their personal tastes.

Compared to previous SAS campaigns we significantly increased the engagement rate (+73%) as well as the time spent on site (+61%).

With production costs around a mere 108,000 USD and combined media spendings about 1,000,000 USD in 31 markets in the EMEA region, the campaign achieved 26,164,983 ad impressions and 78,558,944 social media impressions in just 6 weeks, introducing SAS not only to a new generation of analytics specialists, but also to a larger audience of IT professionals and decision makers.

Earning SAS about 3,934,242 USD in additional free media coverage, media outlets from trade magazines to business magazines and even major national newspapers all over Europe and even in Australia itself reported about the fact that paradise had been found, an unusual achievement for a B2B campaign with limited media buying.

One of the most successful aspects of the campaign is the ongoing interaction of users with the exclusive SAS Paradise Configurator, leading to constant opportunities for sales activities.

Finally, SAS is already in talks with travel and tourist companies voicing interest in licensing the algorithm as a tool and business solution for their own consumer marketing.