Partners Promote Energy Efficiency

Bellevue, Wash. — Everyone says they have good intentions, but regional energy company Puget Sound Energy (PSE) now knows better: money talks.PSE recently teamed with General Electric’s GE Lighting and Target to raise awareness of its energy-efficiency programs with consumers who may not necessarily consider themselves to be “green.” A nine-week campaign kicked off Aug. 2, 2015, with the tagline, “Save money and cut your bills with energy efficiency upgrades.”The wording was specially crafted. PSE’s research showed that the first part of the tagline resonated with all demographics of consumers, says Dennis Rominger, market manager, customer solutions. But insights also showed that customers felt that energy efficiency means “sacrifice,” so the word “upgrade” was used because “an upgrade means something great.”PSE is the oldest local energy company in the state of Washington and serves 1.1 million electric households within a 6,000-square-mile service area in and around Seattle. The major push of the campaign was to fans of the National Football League’s Seattle Seahawks. “Bringing that message to places where our customers play and are having a good time,” Rominger says, “added to the positive impression each customer received around energy efficiency.”PSE worked with its agency, C+C Seattle, to set up a booth for six days at the Seahawks’ training camp and distribute “Golden Upgrade” tickets. The scratch-and-win tickets gave consumers the chance for prizes such as a TV, a GE LED home pack, Target gift cards and GE LED light bulb coupons redeemable at 16 participating Target locations. The tickets mentioned six PSE energy-efficiency programs. Banners touted the campaign’s limited-time offer: select LEDs from GE for $1.99 at participating Target stores.On Sept. 27, PSE did a game-day blitz event – the largest street team takeover event in the utility’s history. Almost 100 GE and PSE staffers, dressed in bright yellow shirts, covered 20 stops including ferries, buses and trains to connect with fans headed to the game. More than 10,700 tickets were distributed and more than 4,000 people came to three PSE booths – two at CenturyLink Field and one at the Seattle Ferry Terminal – to redeem tickets. Instant prizes including TVs, transit fare cards and Target gift certificates were awarded at the stops to raise excitement.Yellow and black were the primary colors used throughout the campaign as research showed this grabbed attention, “especially important when trying to stand out to Seattle sports fans who are head to toe in blue and green,” Rominger says.Beyond the Seahawks-specific events, PSE staffers attended five community events including the Ferndale Street Festival and Olympia Harbor Days. All total, more than 30,000 Golden Upgrade tickets were distributed. An email blast from PSE to its customers included a promotional code that could be used in-store or online at participating Targets for discounts on GE soft white LEDs. Radio and digital ads as well as PSE bill stuffers were all used to drive awareness and sales. GE, Target and PSE logos were prominent on all materials.The partners highlighted the promotion to shoppers with in-store demos (executed by both PSE staffers and The Sunflower Group, Lenexa, Kansas), shelf tray packs with PSE messaging (“You’ve been upgraded”) and endcaps both in the lighting department and out. “The displays were very impactful since they were away from the lighting department, so they had more visibility,” says GE Lighting’s Lisa McLeer, marketing manager, utilities. She notes that endcaps could be found by laundry detergent, office organization, electrical and fans/air filters. McLeer says that with media buys, outreach, coupons and more, the campaign was a “six-figure spend.” To measure its success, she says GE looked at lift and ROI, benchmarking what PSE did the previous year in volume. “On a per-store basis,” says McLeer, “Target exceeded the expectation.”Rominger agrees that it was a success, adding that it was important for the campaign to make a splash for Target. The retailer was a new energy-efficiency lighting partner (GE and PSE have been longtime partners). “We wanted to let customers know that Target has arrived in the LED lighting game in a big way,” he says. “Based upon the sales and lift achieved, we did just that.”PSE also exceeded its goal to raise energy-efficiency awareness by 1% over its established baseline as measured by continuous online customer surveys. Awareness post-campaign was up 3.8%.

Partners Promote Energy Efficiency

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