2014 Bronze Business to Consumer

Client British Gas

How did the campaign make a difference? Gas and electricity prices have gone up in the past three years by 37%. For cash-strapped households the British Gas bill is loaded with negative sentiment. For the rest, British Gas is largely an invisible brand.

By promoting a Vue ticket offer we were able to bring British Gas front of mind and position them as a business that cares for its customers, despite hostile public perception that British Gas always put itself first.

By reframing a simple offer as an emotional experience, the campaign delivered engagement and response significantly above British Gas and industry benchmarks.

64,000 British Gas customers engaged with the offer and visited the campaign redemption page. The 14,000 people who visited the cinema might even have a good word to pass on.

Strategy Before the Winter Launch, British Gas put their prices up by 10%. This unleashed a torrent of public anger that spread through the social and political networks.

To drive some positive customer engagement, the campaign gave British Gas customers free cinema tickets when they spend their Nectar points at Vue. To raise awareness and drive redemptions an integrated digital and direct mail campaign has been running since November 2013.

Web banners, EM and DM were used for the 2013 Winter Launch Campaign and for the Summer Boost Campaign in 2014. Banners in the British Gas Customer Rewards email, coupons within Nectar’s online and offline magazines and social media posts have delivered a pulse of highly targeted, response-driving communications throughout the rest of the year.

Creativity All communications were positioned to create an emotional reason to stay with British Gas.

The Winter Launch featured a one-piece mailer, stating the offer on the outer and wrapped with a ribbon to clearly express the offer as a gift of thanks. Popcorn buckets were used as familiar iconography on coupons, social and email banners to link campaign elements throughout the year. Customers who visited the cinema were thanked, recognised and reminded that they could take up the offer again.

The Summer Boost Campaign aimed to overcome customer inertia about visiting the cinema and give people more than tickets. The creative delivered a summer experience to feel excited about, like you would a summer holiday, and turned a simple ticket offer into a summer experience expressed as a passport to another world.

Results Both campaigns achieved British Gas’ highest ever levels of customer engagement and some very positive customer feedback. Winter and Summer advertising mail pushed the average daily redemption rates to 87 (up 335%) and 86 (up 1620%) respectively. Email open rates were 57%, up 60% on average British Gas communications.

Customers even engaged beyond campaign periods – with the April Customer Rewards email banner driving a 25% CTR, significantly higher than MailChimp’s 2.4% industry benchmark.

The communications programme generated 64,000 unique visitors to the campaign redemption page – 4% of the total mailed base – and over 14,000 people visited the cinema as a result. That’s a significant number of British Gas customers who might just view British Gas in a more positive light the next time they receive their bill.