Situation: There are too many avoidable accidents on Australian roads. No one knows this better than AAMI, Australia’s leading motor insurance company. Every year, AAMI collects comprehensive data from thousands of road accidents across Australia, into their annual AAMI Crash Index. Then publishes the locations of accident hotpots and major causes of accidents in an effort to make drivers aware of these dangers.

Brief: AAMI knows accident numbers spike over long weekends and holidays. Our challenge was to create a road safety campaign to remind Australians to be extra careful, particularly around the most dangerous locations. We needed an innovative solution to deliver this important message.

Objectives: Making our roads safer is at the heart of everything AAMI stands for. We thought it was time time to put all our data to good use, make our roads a little safer and help reduce the number of accidents over long weekends.

AAMI Warning Spots combine multiple data sources to deliver a world-first in road safety messages: Spotify ads using advanced geotargeting to pinpoint a driver’s precise location and alert them to a specific road hazard ahead.

AAMI was able to do this after gathering data from thousands of accidents across Australia, plus additional data from government reports, news items and other sources.

This data allowed us to identify not only the exact locations of accident hotspots, but also determine the main causes of these accidents.

Spotify is Australia’s most popular music site, used by nearly 2.5 million people. This audience is almost exclusively listening to Spotify’s mobile app, with 60% of all users using the free ad-funded platform.

Using Spotify’s advanced geotargeting, we pinpointed the precise location of drivers, matching this data with AAMI’s to target drivers in close proximity to accident hotspots and warn them of oncoming dangers ahead.

Data Gathering. AAMI collects comprehensive data from thousands of crashes across Australia to identify the country’s most dangerous roads. The Great Ocean Road was identified as one of the most dangerous, however, it’s 243 km long. To narrow down the exact locations of the main accident hotspots and find the major cause of these accidents, we gathered additional data from government reports, news items and other sources.

Data Interpretation. The data revealed a number of different hazards were the major cause of accidents at each of the hotspots: tight corners, road narrows, rough surfaces and native wildlife amongst them. To best prepare drivers of the oncoming danger ahead, we needed different tailored messages to alert them of the specific hazards at each of the selected hotspots.

Targeting. AAMI data revealed a weakness in sales to young drivers. It also indicated young drivers to be 20 times more likely to crash. Using Spotify’s advanced geotargeting capabilities, we were able to establish small targeting zones around each accident hotspot. Dynamically tracking the exact position of the driver and relaying this position to the host servers, where the relevant targeted ad is requested and played back in the upcoming ad break.

We launched AAMI Warning Spots on Labour Day’s long weekend from March 8-11, with a second round of airings during the Easter break in April 19-28, 2019.

We kicked off with six highly geotargeted locations along the Great Ocean Road, one of the country’s most popular destinations and also one of its most dangerous roads.

We identified the six most dangerous locations along the 242km stretch of road and created bespoke targeted ads for the main hazards associated with each of these hotspots.

AAMI's data revealed a number of different hazards were the main cause of accidents at each of the hotspots: tight corners, road narrows, rough surfaces and native wildlife amongst them. Our data also revealed the exact time of the day (Morning, afternoon, night) when most accidents happened.

To best prepare drivers of the oncoming danger ahead, we created different tailored messages to alert them of the specific hazards at each of the selected hotspots and aired them at the appropriate time.

To avoid re-playing the ads to locals, our Spotify ads were frequency capped.

A nation-wide campaign is to follow, with AAMI Warning Spots for notorious accident hotspots in every state of Australia airing in July 2019.

Reach numbers were restricted to Spotify listeners within small geotargeted areas in close proximity to accident hotspots.

• 64% of all Spotify listeners driving through our targeted areas were served an AAMI Warning Spot, nearly two thirds of the total audience.

• 94% completion rate. Engagement was much higher than the average Spotify ad.

• 92% positive sentiment towards AAMI Brand.

• Featured in over 40 pieces of national and international media.

• Business Impact: Our campaign was an road safety awareness message, and as such there were no specific sales or business targets. However, after the successful launch, AAMI Warning Spots will now be served all over Australia, alerting drivers of specific hazards at all major accident hotspots in every state and territory.