Copy-Led Campaign for Smart Energy Reframes the Smart Meter Debate

AMV BBDO has created a bold campaign for Smart Energy GB, the voice of Britain’s smart meter rollout, that will run for five weeks from 20th November in national press and outdoor. 

With an increase in challenging press coverage of the smart meter rollout in some segments of national print media, Smart Energy GB’s new campaign will encourage people to reappraise smart meters, and ultimately reframe the debate. 

Britain’s smart meter rollout is an essential upgrade to make our national energy system fit for the future.  Digitised energy will make it possible to roll out electric vehicles across the country, new energy tariffs based on time of use, greater consumer engagement and competitiveness in the energy market, and other innovations using energy data. The campaign puts smart meters in the historical context of other new technological advancers through our recent history – the kettle, the microwave oven and the TV - to reframe this debate.

Using behavioural science, AMV BBDO recognised that everyone of us is prone to ‘confirmation bias’, a cognitive tendency to search for and recall information in a way that confirms one’s pre-existing beliefs. AMV could see that a complementary approach to executions focussing on product benefits was required, creating 'The New Ordinary': a brave campaign void of all logos, call to actions and branding. 

Each execution in the forward-thinking series elaborates on the story of a single, everyday household appliance – the kettle, microwave and TV - and invites people to wonder if maybe smart meters will soon become as commonplace and unremarkable as those objects. The long-form copy and art directional style were chosen to evoke the era of the technological developments featured.

Gavin Sheppard, Director of Marketing at Smart Energy GB said: “We know that if we wanted to persuade people to think afresh about smart meters, we needed to do something brave, something different, something unlike the thousands of other ads people see every day. So we took every single accepted trope of advertising, and binned it. No corporate logo. No call to action. No long list of product benefits. No pack shot. No two-for-one-with-this-voucher. 

"We are inviting our fellow citizens of Great Britain to think again about smart meters – as they might once have done about the television set or microwave oven. We’re treating people like adults. This is advertising as a conversation."