'Your Energy, Your Future, Our Purpose' won Gold in Energy and Industry at The Drum Awards for Marketing. This campaign introduced the new independent system planner and operator NESO, emphasizing its role in Britain's energy transition to net zero by engaging key industry stakeholders and consumers.
The introduction of an independent system planner and operator with a whole-system perspective marks a significant turning point for British energy on our journey to net zero. The challenge was to ensure NESO’s launch provided a solid foundation for the organization to build the relationships and credibility required to drive success in Britain’s energy transition to 2030 and beyond.
‘Your Energy, Your Future, Our Purpose’ was developed as NESO’s brand mission for the launch campaign to deliver two key messages to audiences:
However, as a brand-new public organization, it faced one key challenge. How should NESO let key industry stakeholders and consumers know that it is there, ready to deliver a secure, sustainable, and affordable energy system?
To effectively launch NESO, we had to consider the target audiences and what they were expecting from the organization. Further to this, once they were aware, what would allow them to trust NESO and build confidence in its ability to deliver on our mission statement?
After identifying our audience needs, we were able to identify varied messaging to engage each of our key audience groups throughout the launch campaign. Next, we had to find the right voice. This meant utilizing trusted in-house experts and also trusted third-party voices to give credibility to the new organization.
Externally, we spoke with leading voices from across British energy, including:
In-house, our campaign was fronted by:
In addition to harnessing these industry leaders’ voices through individual interviews, the Eulogy team traveled around Britain to discuss the impact of the energy transition, visiting key energy facilities in England, Scotland, and Wales.
As a result, our hero launch film tells an end-to-end story of the challenge facing Britain to reach net zero, the role of NESO in delivering this, and the impact that NESO’s efforts will have for the energy industry, job creation, and the wider public across Britain.
The next challenge was ensuring our launch campaign effectively reached all our audiences. With a pre-announcement in mid-September ahead of an October 1 launch, NESO was able to benefit from two waves of national and trade coverage landing in key titles including the Times, Reuters, Business Green, Current+, and many other key titles.
Driving awareness, a targeted OOH campaign placed digital and print content along key commuter routes into Westminster, Ofgem’s Canary Wharf office, the Welsh Parliament in Cardiff, Scottish Parliament, and civil service offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The four-week OOH campaign featured over 100 unique adverts and balanced mass population awareness with targeted messaging for regulators and policymakers.
The campaign delivered over 45 million opportunities to see NESO’s brand, with adverts including our mission statement giving clarity of NESO’s purpose and role supporting Britain’s energy system while targeted messaging demonstrated the proactive role NESO would take in delivering a secure and affordable pathway to net zero energy in Britain.
The brand was also introduced to policymakers and regulators at focused launch events in Scotland, Wales, England, and Belgium and to business leaders across industrial clusters in Britain.
To further deepen brand awareness with key industry stakeholders, regulators, and policymakers, our social media campaign utilized key quotes from our internal and external campaign voices to explain the role and need for NESO to enable Britain to continue to progress towards the Government’s 2030 Clean Energy goals.
The content focused on putting the right voice in front of the correct audiences. With our internal leaders setting out the ambition, expectation, and focus of NESO, external energy leaders spoke of the wider journey the nation is on and the benefit a central organization, in the form of NESO, could deliver for our national ambition.
Our social video content created an additional point of awareness for key audiences where they could gain a deeper level of insight into NESO’s role. Over six weeks, the paid social campaign drove significant brand awareness and engagement. Running across both LinkedIn and Meta, the campaign delivered a 6.52% engagement rate across all content and supported NESO in growing their LinkedIn following from 0 to 10,000 in two months.
The campaign also delivered significant brand engagement, with our social video cutdowns driving over 30,000 direct visits to the NESO website, where audiences could engage further with our hero film, which now has over 12,000 views – demonstrating significant engagement within a small sector audience.
To ensure NESO also built immediate credibility with partners in Europe, the team launched a paid partnership with Politico to reach key stakeholders in Brussels. The partnership delivered a sponsored advertorial from Fintan on launch day with additional online banners and a five-day newsletter sponsorship, driving 136 website visits; 112.5% above Politico’s benchmark for clicks running in December.
The launch campaign delivered significant value to NESO both pre and post-launch. In developing the content, NESO was able to engage with many of Britain’s leading energy specialists, deepening relationships and understanding their needs for the future.
The overall campaign results delivered both widespread awareness and deeper engagement with NESO as a new organization, introducing it to the nation and key industry partners. Our results exceeded expectations and set the organization on the right foot to deliver impact from day one.