By combining real ambulance response time data with Facebook’s geographical targeting options, we created a relevant and personal experience on Facebook. By demonstrating how long time each viewer actually has to wait for an ambulance in case of an emergency, we managed to activate 80.000 Norwegians to visit Red Cross’ first aid website.

In case of an emergency, knowing CPR can be crucial to save lives. If someone gets a heart attack, the chance of survival is reduced by 10% for every minute that goes without cardiovascular rescue. Sadly, only 4 out of 10 Norwegians know enough first aid to help in a life-threatening situation. The Norwegian Red Cross wanted an idea that could remind as many Norwegians as possible about the importance of learning CPR. KPI: Visits to Red Cross first-aid website. Insights: When working on the strategy, we found that previous first aid campaigns missed an important element: The disparities in Norwegian geography. Because of our rural nature, professional help is often much further away than people think. By digging deeper into data from Norwegian Statistics, we found that the average response time for an ambulance is 17 minutes. In some places, help would be several hours away.

We decided to show people the importance of learning first aid, by demonstrating how long they actually have to wait for an ambulance in case of an emergency. The idea: We created 422 unique Facebook films, geo-targeted across the country. In each film, a family man suffers from a heart attack, and we follow his wife’s desperate fight to keep him alive while waiting for the ambulance. To engage each viewer in a direct and relevant way, the waiting time in the film match the actual response time for an ambulance - where they are, when they see it. So if a person watched the film in Herøy, the ambulance in the film arrived after 32 minutes – the same as the actual response time.

We wanted to show people the importance of learning first aid, by demonstrating how long they actually have to wait for an ambulance in case of an emergency. Our target audience was the entire population of Norway, with local focus. By combining real response time data with Facebook’s geographical targeting options, we could reach and engage citizens across our rural and widespread country in a direct and very relevant way.

By using data from Norwegian statistics and a custom-made editing and publishing program, we generated a total of 422 unique Facebook films, and geo-targeted them across the country – one film for each district. Both the video itself, as well as the post copy in each of 422 Facebook posts, was customized. To match the film with the correct response time, each video consisted of five parts; a fixed intro, the action shot, two loopable shots and an outro. A special built program generated 422 unique films, and the finished videos was automatically uploaded to Facebook’s ad library. As predicted, a lot of the viewers skipped to the end to see how it ended. This, combined with massive engagement, made the Facebook-algorithm assume that people actually saw hours of content in their newsfeed, giving the campaign a huge organic push.

By applying a granular approach to our targeting, we managed to increase our relevance in the different target groups. 422 different target groups meant that the average audience size consisted of less than 10 000 Facebook users, with some target groups even being below <1 000. Despite this, we manage to get significant reach across the target groups, as well as seeing the overall performance of the ads deliver very effective and cost-efficient. The campaign reached 1/3 of the Norwegian population. 1.000.000 organic views 80.000 visits to Red Cross’ first aid website (Population: 5 million)