Fire and Emergency New Zealand Case Study

Background

An average of 4,500 wildfires ravage 7,300 hectares in New Zealand annually, inflicting damages upwards of $100 million NZD to infrastructure and public assets. Yet, this monetary measure barely begins to quantify deeper costs – the toll on our environment, biodiversity, treasured conservation lands, private properties and above all, the invaluable loss of life.

99% of these wildfires are the direct consequence of human actions, casting a shadow over the innocence of a campfire or the spark of outdoor work.

Core Objective 

Fire and Emergency aimed to increase awareness and education of fire prevention and wildfire warnings to engage with two distinct groups - locals that are naive to the risk of wildfire and those visiting rural areas that are less competent with recreational fires.

They ran a fully automated, geo-targeted dynamic creative campaign with New Zealand’s most recognisable icon, the ‘Half Grapefruit’ – a decades-old visual used to convey the level of fire danger in a particular area.

Solutions

The campaign was activated in New Zealand across 90 large format digital billboards (LUMO & Go Media) and 209 gas stations screens (HYPER), then leveraged data to drive highly targeted and contextually relevant creative. Hivestack by Perion, in partnership with MBM, enabled Fire and Emergency to connect with different audiences, delivering relevant ads (with location-specific fire danger data) in real-time.

Using the Hivestack DSP, the campaign was able to geofence rural areas and larger cities, when there was a high propensity of their target audiences around specific DOOH screens. Creative was dynamically adapted to the relevant variation of the ‘Half Grapefruit’ based on fire risk assessments.

For example, ads with the messaging, “Check it’s alright, before you light”, would be delivered at locations where audiences are contemplating outdoor fires, or activities that could emit sparks. This would allow them to gain awareness of the local fire danger level, understand it and act accordingly to prevent wildfires. 

Fire and Emergency was also able to use historical data to predict regions at-risk and adapt their campaign accordingly, an exclusive feature powered by programmatic technology. This unique ability to leverage location-specific fire danger data in real-time, was supported via APIs built by NIWA, New Zealand's leading environmental science institute.

Using the API endpoint provided the Hivestack DSP with timely and geographically precise risk observations for activation. We set fire danger event levels to “True”, “False” or “Null”. If the values were between 1-2 (low & moderate risk), the campaign would cease bidding on the corresponding lines, whereas if the values were between 3-5 (high, very high, or extreme risk), it allowed Hivestack to activate three variations of the 'Half Grapefruit' emblem on the appropriate screen. 

Results 

Historically at-risk areas, such as Northland, Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Hawkes Bay, experienced record-breaking rainfall during the summer, reducing the typical financial commitment to these zones. As a result, the campaign was optimised to focus on other regions like Nelson, Wellington, Dunedin, Queenstown, and Wanaka – extending the campaign for another two months.

The goal was to encourage 75% of people to consistently evaluate fire danger prior to engaging in activities that could produce sparks. The campaign over-achieved at reaching 85%.

We set an objective for 75% compliance in which individuals would assess the local fire danger before igniting an outdoor fire. We also over-achieved at 90%.

Testimonials

“We are often asked the question – when to activate DOOH programmatically, and when not to. This is a clear example of ‘when to’. Legacy buy types and ad tech limitations have always restricted Fire & Emergency New Zealand to promote fire safety in DOOH - a channel that reaches audiences closest to the behaviour in which they are trying to change. Without the ability to activate our network programmatically via Hivestack’s custom event feature, LUMO and the solution we built would have never featured on the plan.” - Jack Plowright, General Manager - Programmatic, LUMO

"Hivestack’s ability to activate our DOOH buy based on real time fire danger data was a key driver in bringing this idea to life. This further allowed us to deliver dynamic and relevant fire prevention messages across the country with precision.” - Kaitlin Mitchell, Business Director, MBM