PARADISE FOUND

TitlePARADISE FOUND
BrandSAS
Product/ServiceSAS VIYA
Category A10. B2B
Entrant CHEIL GERMANY Frankfurt, GERMANY
Idea Creation CHEIL GERMANY Frankfurt, GERMANY
Credits
Name Company Position
Roland Rudolf Cheil Germany Chief Creative Officer
Joern Welle Cheil Germany Executive Creative Director
Harald Linsenmeier Cheil Germany Freelance
Jens Orillo Cheil Germany Freelance
Alphons Conzen Cheil Germany Freelance
Arnab Biswas Cheil Germany Creative Director
Sabrina Lienig Cheil Germany Senior Art Director
Chris Druecks Cheil Germany Senior Copywriter
Cindy Steigerwald Cheil Germany Senior Producer
Sven Lohwasser Cheil Germany Managing Director
Lars Backes Cheil Germany Vice President Digital Planning
Sami Qassiti Cheil Germany Project Manager
Guido Boehm Cheil Germany Creative Director
Mustafa Karakas Cheil Germany Art Director
Olga Potempa Cheil Germany Senior Copywriter

Background

Despite being the market leader in advanced analytics, SAS as a brand stands in the shadow of corporations like IBM and SAP. At the same time, customers and the user base of analytics solutions are more and more influenced by the millennial generation and it's more casual, content-driven approach to communications. As an answer to this combined market and communication challenges, SAS wanted to develop a multi-channel digital campaign across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa with a strong emphasis on social media. The goal was to significantly raise awareness for the new SAS Viya analytics platform within the digital native demographic while delivering response and new impulses for online and offline sales activities.

Describe the strategy

To reach and emotionally engage a wider business audience and the millennial demographic in a highly competitive and rather functional B2B market, the strategy was to show the power of SAS analytics software by simply using it – but in an unusual and creative way. In the initial step, our algorithm analyzed 5 million data points from 1,224 data sources to determine 69 objectively relevant assessment criteria – twice the number used for the most comprehensive conventional rankings. In the second stage, over 148,000 cities in 193 countries were compared using the set of criteria down to district level, with West Perth, Australia, coming out on top. By using SAS' own tools and presenting the astonishing result on social media, on SAS' website, and through a highly-targeted display ad campaign, we could engage the audience directly as well as present all project and product details in a natural, fluid way.

Describe the execution

The best place on Earth according to our self-learning algorithm and 5 million data points is West Perth, Australia! Because we used the SAS software to build the algorithm and perform all analytics, we had an actual “real-life” use case and not just a mere advertising campaign. Once we finally had the result, we instantly turned it into a highly targeted digital multi-channel campaign across 31 markets in the EMEA region, including display-ads on IT-business related websites as well as postings on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The process itself and the usage of the SAS tools were documented on the comprehensive campaign website that also included several video interviews with analytics experts. Finally, we launched the 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.

List the results

SAS was not only introduced to a new generation of analytics specialists, but also to a larger audience of IT professionals and decision makers. The campaign achieved 26,164,983 ad impressions and 78,558,944 social media impressions in just 6 weeks. Compared to previous SAS campaigns the engagement rate went up for 73%, time spent on site +61%. Unusual for a B2B campaign, Paradise Found gained about 2,235,000 USD in earned media, including trade magazines, business magazines and even major newspapers all over Europe and even in Australia itself – an unusual achievement for a B2B campaign. One of the most successful aspects of the campaign is the ongoing interaction of users with the exclusive SAS Paradise Configurator, leading to not only to constant opportunities for sales activities but also placing "Paradise Found" among the Top-3- search results on Google.