The energy sector is currently driven on price promotion and functional benefits. Energy is an invisible commodity, traditionally bought by default with little active choice or emotional engagement. However, with climate change and energy security becoming increasingly concerning for some consumers, there was an opportunity to challenge this.
Good Energy is no ordinary energy company, and it was important to use the business’ wider social purpose to differentiate the brand and to connect with a broader customer base. We launched the idea of ’homegrown energy’, focused on revealing the provenance of the energy (100% renewable energy sourced from 1,300 British generators) to reconnect customers with its source and goodness. To further highlight the customer’s key role in helping Good Energy to achieve its vision we also developed a new strapline ‘Together we do this’.
Müller, the UK’s number 1 yogurt brand, was losing differentiation and preference in the short-life dairy product fixture. The brand needed to reestablish its uniqueness, and find a way to build greater levels of conviction into its promise.
Through our brand audit we identified that nearly all Müller’s milk comes from within 30 miles of its Shropshire-based factory. This provided the necessary platform to reestablish direction in the business and meaning in the brand. We reoriented its mission around providing goodness for all its stakeholders – bringing fresh local produce to consumers, renewing long-term partnerships with neighbouring farmers, giving employees a clearer sense of the difference they make in their work.
All leading to the best performance for the brand in both volume and value terms for three years, and a brand social equity score up by 25%
Cadbury wanted to find an efficient way to engage widest possible audiences in its socially responsible business practices and asked us to help them produce an innovative reporting format. Normally these kinds of reports are thick, uninviting, generic, dense and uninviting.
First we conducted a materiality review to find out what was important to people and Cadbury. Then we spoke to different stakeholder groups from consumers to investors. What was clear across the board was that everybody loved Cadbury – even investors were fans. Everyone wanted to hear good things to make them feel even better about buying and supporting the brand. Even the slightly edgy letters from consumers asking about things like packaging and Fairtrade would always start ‘Dear Cadbury..’. So, we that’s what we named our online brand platform. We created specific expert and ‘explorer’ journeys and content. This is a show not tell report where Cadbury lifted the bonnet and showed people the real stuff that they were doing – real emails, memos, press articles and interviews.
We broke with CSR reporting orthodoxy, but the critics responded favourably, and over 26,000 people came to visit.
Nespresso was leading the premium portioned coffee sector, with annual growth topping 30 per cent for the previous 5 years, and a franchise of over 6 million club members worldwide. But in the face of increasing competition in the market as well as for highest quality raw materials, Nespresso needed to define a platform for innovation to protect growth and maintain share of market.
We analysed Nespresso’s assets, risks and social context. Its heritage of leading innovation and expertise was clear, and pointed to the opportunity for collaboration with external experts to define its role as a leading player in creating a sustainable future for highest quality coffee. This led us to create Ecolaboration, Nespresso’s proprietary innovation platform, which was launched mid 2009.
Already it’s spawning new initiatives and partnerships across the whole business – in supply chain, product development and human resources.
