It’s a huge marketing challenge to ask potential customers to pay extra for something they can’t see or touch. Bullfrog Power, Canada’s largest provider of 100%-green electricity, succeeded at this very task with an innovative offering that has sparked a consumer movement.
“We tried to create a really exceptional product,” says company president Tom Heintzman, who admits convincing households and businesses to switch to renewable energy is no small task. “You can’t see or smell or taste or touch it—it’s one of the most intangible products… No one out there has a budget line for green power.”
The Toronto-based company—which ensures electricity used by its customers is matched by the amount of renewable electricity it is channelling into the grid via its wind turbines and low-impact water generators—opened its doors in Ontario three years ago and expanded its offering to Alberta last year. So far it has signed up close to 8,000 households and almost 800 businesses, and the company’s appeal goes far beyond tree huggers to reach Wal-Mart, BMO Financial Group, RBC, TD Bank Financial Group and Lululemon Athletica, to name a few.
While terms such as “carbon footprint” and “climate change” are an accepted part of today’s lexicon, when Bullfrog started in 2005 Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth hadn’t even hit the big screen.
“They launched in the darkest days; at a time that not everyone believe in the need,” says Pamela Davis-Ross, vice-president and chief marketing officer at Sunnybrook Foundation in Toronto and former vice-president of marketing at WWF Canada. She worked closely on a program that gave the energy company access to WWF’s highly protected donor base. “I think they’re really smart marketers; the focus on the customer is really incredible.”
Bullfrog’s respect for that customer relationship runs so deep that when named to Marketing’s list of Canada’s Top Marketers, Heintzman and company were a little wary of the honour. They don’t think of themselves as marketers in the traditional sense. But that’s exactly the point. Bullfrog is proof that organizations with strong brand values that reflect those of the target market can rely on grassroots, word of mouth and the web to spread its message. “Word-of-mouth is an extremely powerful form of communication,” says Heintzman. “To a large measure, we divest ourselves of the brand and put it in the hands of our customers.”
Bullfrog’s website, BullfrogPower.com, fulfills numerous roles—including registering new customers—but steers clear of high-pressure sales pitches. Instead Bullfrog states its case in a clean accessible way that emphasizes how easy and important it is for consumers to go green.
“Interpersonal contact is a really important part of our brand,” says Heintzman, who also communicates with clients via the Bullfrog E-Buzz newsletter. This is one of the reasons he and his team devote so much time to public speaking.
It also made a recent foray into mainstream advertising with a recent multi-page ad in The Globe and Mail. Not your average print ad, it remained true to the Bullfrog vision with information-rich content.
While the ultimate goal is to expand nationwide, communication efforts such as this are kept close to home, with everything from public relations to web design done in-house.
Other marketing tools include events—Bullfrog is involved in about 350 a year. There’s also the simple yet powerful signs featuring a leaping frog and the phrase “BullfrogPowered” that are everywhere, from front lawns to ATMs, to beer cases and the websites and newsletters of countless customers and partners.
The group also made some serious noise recently at the third annual Bullfrog Bash, which featured supporter Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip.
“When you think about it, 700 people coming out for a party for their electricity company is quite unusual,” says Heintzman. But they did, and that’s because with its marketing efforts, Bullfrog created more than just a product. It created a vision for the future.
“There’s such a sense of empowerment and that’s what it’s all about; giving people a choice they never had before.”
