Enterprise Ascendr | Using data to predict the future

Using data to predict the future

We set out to create digital and social content about popular travel destinations to drive consumers to the Enterprise site, so we built a tool that could predict trending travel destinations before they became popular.

HOW WE GOT THERE

The Challenge
At 360i Europe we have been helping transform Enterprise Rent-A-Car from just another car hire brand into an inspirational mobility brand. We set out to create digital and social content about popular travel destinations to drive consumers to the Enterprise site, but the problem with popular destinations is that everyone else on the internet was already talking about them.
The What If
What if, using data, we could accurately predict and create content around specific destinations before they became popular? Then our content wouldn’t get lost in the inevitable flood of content: it would be there first, at the right place and the right time.
The Data-Driven Solution
Through blood, sweat (and a few coding tears) we programmed a sophisticated algorithm that combined and analysed Search, Social and Influencer data in order to predict which European destinations would be trending online in the next 12 months. We used Ascendr to shortlist the 20 locations with the highest trend capacity score, and then set out to create content based on Ascendr’s predictions. We later tested which locations really did surge in popularity, and all 20 predicted locations had increased year-on-year in search volume - that’s a 100% accuracy rate!

OUR SUMMARY

The ResultsOver the next 6 months of creating content, we compared performance of content fueled by Ascendr predictions against our standard content and we found that Ascendr-driven content outperformed standard content by 247% in terms of pageviews and 5.3% in term of click-through-rates. Since then, we have used Ascendr’s abilities for clients across several verticals to help them predict the future and deliver on our promise of data-driven creativity.