Enercare is helping Canadians conquer their “winter denial” in a new campaign. With consumers soon turning on their furnaces, the campaign shows people holding on to summer, for example, sitting on a snow-covered patio. Ads feature the copy: “still in denial? It’s time for a wintervention.”
“Our approach was that our technicians are here to help keep you warm and comfortable and get you ready for winter, even if you’re not ready to let go of summer,” said Lorne Solway, chief marketing officer at Enercare. “It’s meant to communicate the fact that we understand the whole notion of extending summer… but we want to make sure you’re prepared when you do need to let go of it.”
The campaign includes direct marketing, social media, email, video content and public relations.
It’s the latest phase in Enercare’s rebranding efforts, which got underway after the company acquired Direct Energy in 2014. In June 2015, Enercare unveiled a new logo and brand identity, and in September that year, launched its first integrated marketing campaign, which showed Enercare technicians servicing different heating, cooling and plumbing equipment around a house while singing a barbershop quartet-style song.
“One of the key challenges was how do you migrate from a brand—that being Direct Energy—that has a pretty high awareness in the marketplace to virtually an unknown brand, which is Enercare,” said Solway, adding that Enercare was more of a B2B brand.
Solway said results of the rebrand have been strong, with Enercare seeing double-digit gains in unaided awareness (from 0.8% to 25%) from November 2014 to November 2015, as well as “significant increases” in customer satisfaction scores.
“We carved out three key focal areas, all centred around improving our customer experience, with the key drivers being: a company I can trust, easy to do business with and cares about its customers,” said Solway.
To drive increases under each of those metrics, Enercare focused on four areas. It launched a mobile app that allows customers to book service calls right from their phones; built its social media presence on Facebook; created a video series called “Enercare Helpful Home Comfort Series” to provide homeowners with DIY fixes and energy-efficiency tips; and launched its Fresh Start corporate social responsibility program. Enercare’s inaugural partner is Yellow Brick House, which supports families in need of a fresh start.
The fourth element was the evolution of its creative platform. “When we launched the brand, we set out to break through in a vertical that was a little bit more cookie cutter and we introduced singing and dancing technicians,” said Solway.
“It worked from an awareness standpoint… but we wanted to pivot more towards customer centricity and making sure we communicate [messages] that are built on true consumer insights.”
This past spring, Enercare launched its “Cool Down” campaign that was focused on the insight that consumers really don’t like to feel hot and sticky. “We built our campaign around ‘hot and sticky days are coming,’” said Solway. “And the solution to that is our over 700 skilled technicians are there to make you feel cool and comfortable.” A similar insight was used for the new fall campaign, but tailored to the heating season.
Enercare is also working on its “connected home” strategy, which will be piloted early next year and will roll out towards the end of 2017. “We [want to provide] a whole home solution, which means that our mobile app is our gateway to providing a home that is fully connected and speaks the same language that our customers speak, provides them diagnostics, as well as information on how they can get in front of issues in their home, rather than be reactive when something breaks down,” said Solway.
Enercare’s agency partners are Bimm, North Strategic, Notch Video and OMD.
