“Smell gas? Act! Call 0800 111 999. Save the number in your phone today.”
We were delighted to work with Cadent to publicise this life-saving message with clear, concise instructions on what to do if you smell gas. Our team created an animation that has reached over half a million views (and counting!) on YouTube. We aimed to deliver an accessible message while refining the campaign mark.
Watch the animation here:
Objectives
Cadent set out to raise public awareness of gas safety through a focused campaign titled “Smell, Act, Call”. A key campaign requirement was to subtly develop the campaign mark whilst ensuring clarity and accessibility across all content. The “act” stage of the campaign needed to be emphasised as an important part of the process if you can smell gas.
Challenges and Requirements
Development of the Campaign Mark
Cadent required the existing campaign mark to be refined without losing its core identity. We aimed to enhance its visual appearance whilst remaining recognisable.
Clear and Accessible Content
Elements across the campaign needed to be easily understood by a broad audience. With a specific focus on the “act” icon, the campaign’s overall message needed to be easily interpreted.
Structure and Hierarchy
We were tasked with making sure that the number, message, and icons were visually balanced, with the emergency phone number placed last in the hierarchy for optimal comprehension.
Our Approach
Animation Creation
We designed and created a dynamic, engaging animation to capture the essence of the “Smell, Act, Call” message. Using clear, accessible visuals, we ensured the message was direct and memorable. We seamlessly incorporated the campaign mark, with a little enhancement but maintaining the original design.
Accessible Icons
In particular, we focused on developing the ‘act’ icon, to make sure it was communicated in an easy-to-understand way. By using simple, bold shapes and colours, the icons were universally recognisable, which is important for a campaign of this nature.
Visual Hierarchy
We carefully structured the animation, giving importance to the main message before introducing the emergency contact number. This hierarchy was important as we needed to ensure the audience understood the main message before noting the critical information of the phone number.
Social Media Assets
As well as the animation, we developed a comprehensive suite of social media assets. Including banners, carousels and cover photos tailored to specific platforms. We ensured consistent messaging and visual branding across all the content.
Results
The “Smell, Act, Call” Campaign for the Cadent animation gained plenty of traction, with over 500,000 views on YouTube! Our campaign assets successfully met the client’s requirements, ensuring the message was delivered clearly and resonated with the target audience.
To find out more about Cadent and their various resources and information regarding gas safety, visit their website.
Do you have a project where you’d like support from a creative and strategic team? Get in touch to have a chat, we’d love to hear from you!
With the world steadily moving toward a digital future, and with an increasing popularity for remote working, the value of getting a team together to have a frank discussion and think about their field is at risk of being lost. When done correctly, workshops can formulate innovative solutions, encourage team building, and instil some creativity and openness into a team or organisation.
In no particular order, here are 4 ways workshops will provide value for businesses and companies:
1. Workshops Provide Expertise and Innovation
The first way a workshop can add value to your company is by providing some expertise and innovative ideas in your field.
For example, here at Blumilk, our expertise spreads over a lot of fields such as graphic design, social media, website development, and both physical and digital advertising. Other agencies may specialise in very specific, niche areas. Whatever you do, make sure you research agencies to choose the right one – after all, you won’t want financial advice from a photography agency, and vice versa!
As an example of this expertise, a workshop we recently carried out for Blue Light Card (the organisers and providers of blue light discounts) centred around key developments and changes with digital marketing. We covered areas like voice search, TikTok, the metaverse, and NFTs and encouraged our client to think about how they could be incorporated by the organisation.
Just make sure you aren’t too over-ambitious and make sure the advice and suggestions you’re receiving are realistic and practical. Innovative ideas are only useful if they can be built on in a meaningful way. There’s a reason the wheel hasn’t been reinvented after all!
2. The Need for Honesty and Openness
Before expertise and innovation can be embraced, a company must be prepared for honest, open conversations, and this is the second key benefit for workshops.
It’s important in any workplace that employees feel free to express their genuine thoughts and feelings. A great way to do this is to get out of the office and in a new environment that provides a creative space for thought-provoking discussions – like a workshop!
We understood the importance of openness when we were creating workshops for Access training, an award-winning training provider in Gateshead, to help them devise a marketing strategy. In the workshops, we encouraged employees at all levels to think carefully about the company’s identity, short-term objectives, future aspirations, and challenges and successes.
Ultimately, having honesty and openness in a team will result in clearer aims and objectives that everybody can genuinely get behind.
3. Team Building and Collaboration in Workshops
A lot of companies find that, over time, teams and individuals within those teams become more and more one-dimensional as they plug away at their specific area or tasks.
A workshop offers the perfect space to blow away those workplace cobwebs and reconnect with other teams and colleagues. However, the important thing is to ensure that a colleague’s contributions are seriously supported and considered, regardless of their position or responsibilities.
For example, Blue Light Card approached when trying to figure out how they could empower their employees to feel part of the organisation. The goal was to ensure the member services team understood the brand to the same extent as the communications team. Finding a workable solution required collaboration, understanding, and effective communication; all of which were encouraged through the bespoke workshop we made.
4. Workshops Encourage Creativity and Enthusiasm
Just as important as the other factors, workshops also inject creativity and enthusiasm into a team. Burnout is a very real threat for a lot of companies and it can quickly bring about other issues, whether it’s customer satisfaction, financial spreadsheets, or important company messaging, for example.
Getting the team involved in coming up with some ideas based on research-driven suggestions is a great way to get everybody enthused about your current aims and objectives. Hopefully this enthusiasm will be a long-term injection so that your company will be reaping the rewards of the workshop six months down the line.
When CCW came to us looking for help with a complete branding refresh, we ended up delivering their brand launch, organising guest speakers on the importance of brand, launched the brand internally, and then also facilitated the day on their behalf.
It should now be obvious that workshops can provide a lot of value to your company or business. Not only do they provide expertise and innovative ideas but they encourage openness and honesty within teams. They also encourage greater collaboration and team building by providing opportunities to be more creative and to instil enthusiasm amongst colleagues.
If you think your company requires a workshop to meet any of these ends then our experts here at Blumilk would be more than happy to help. From public relations to internal communications, from social media management to advertising campaigns, and from animation to hand-drawn graphics, we’re here to help every step of the way. Make sure to get in touch today if you have any questions!
By golly, it’s been a windy and bitterly cold week in the North East of England but thankfully, Blumilk’s Client Director, Lauren St Hilaire was toasty warm over the water in Gateshead thanks to a scheme from the government’s Hy4Heat Innovation Programme.
The UK’s first hydrogen-fuelled home
Located in Low Thornely, Gateshead, this incredible project, affectionately named ‘Hy Grove’ has seen two residential semi-detached homes being fuelled exclusively by Hydrogen; from boilers to hobs, cookers to fires, all of which release no carbon emissions whatsoever.
1 Hy Grove is the first hydrogen fuelled home and offers a glimpse into a zero-carbon home of the future demonstrating the potential to aid the Government in its ambitions to eliminate the UK’s contribution to climate change by 2050.
The project secured a £250k grant from the Government’s Hy4Heat Innovation Programme and is being run by gas company Northern Gas Networks and Cadent Gas, who have both also invested £250k of funding each respectively.
Chief Executive Officer of Northern Gas Networks, Mark Horsely, said: ‘We’re delighted to be working with NEIS and Cadent on this unique demonstration, which gives energy customers a first glimpse at hydrogen technology in the home.
‘Just like natural gas, hydrogen can heat homes in exactly the same way, meaning minimal change for customers in terms of how they use gas for heating or cooking.
‘The houses bring to life the potential of this green gas for keeping UK homes warm while minimising the impact on the environment.’
Chief Executive Officer of Cadent Gas, Steve Fraser, said: ‘We are proud to be part of this project where we will be able to show customers what their future gas appliances look like. A familiar sight to them, with one difference, they will be powered by hydrogen.
‘These projects are so important to demonstrate a decarbonised energy solution in homes now.’
This project forms the basis of a much larger scheme set out in the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan which also includes some exciting plans to establish a Hydrogen Neighbourhood and possibly even a Hydrogen-powered town before this decade is out.
Unlike natural gas which currently powers more than 23 million homes in the UK and is responsible for more than 30% of the UK’s carbon emissions, hydrogen uses no carbon at the point of use with the only by-product being water.
Not only is this a massively positive step for our environment, but the scheme is also set to create more than 8000 jobs nationwide by 2030, with that figure rising to 100,000 by 2050.
Energy Minister, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, said: ‘From running a hot bath and cooking our evening meals to turning on the heating, most of us use natural gas every day. However, to tackle climate change, we need to find alternatives to fossil fuels and move towards making clean energy the norm.
‘While these new houses in Gateshead will look like any other, they will showcase how low carbon hydrogen can transform the way we power our homes and offer a glimpse of what the future holds as we build back greener.’
To say Lauren and Kim were impressed is an understatement with the race to net zero firmly on Blumilk’s agenda and also that of each of their clients they support with their decarbonisation plans every day.
To find out more on how Blumilk can assist you in the Race to Zero, get in touch with us today at info@blumilk.com.
Blumilk are attending the 2021 Net Zero and Energy Management Expo (EMEX) at the London ExCel and are incredibly excited to get the chance to engage with like-minded exhibitors and visitors to talk about all things sustainability.
Attended by professionals from the energy, environment, sustainability and climate action fields, the two day event follows on from the historic COP26 and, alongside its jam-packed agenda of thoroughly thought-provoking and inspiring talks and discussions, it’s set to be the most successful EMEX conference to date.
Blumilk has the lowdown on what to expect together with our recommended ‘not-to-be-missed’ highlights to ensure you get the very best out of the event.
Day One
COP26 ROUNDUP 09.40 GMT
Panelists weigh the promise and the shortfalls of the COP26 conference deal and address the role of businesses and professionals in fighting climate change.
If COP26 has not solved the problem, we have to assume that we’re all part of the solution!
BUILDING SKILLS, CREATING A NET ZERO READY WORKFORCE 11.50 GMT
Alongside the transition to a low-carbon economy, there are powerful trends at play that will reshape the skills needed for businesses today and create labour shortage in the very near future. There is also a need to involve every single part of your business to transition together.
This means that converting an organisation’s climate strategy into an engaging ambition that colleagues choose to support is also becoming vital to your success. And yet, HR’s role in the climate transformation remains curiously undefined.’
-What skills are needed today and tomorrow to reach net zero by 2050?
-How to identify skills gaps and potential labour shortage in organisations?
-What are the upside of addressing workforce planning sooner rather than later?
-What role HR can play to integrate climate action into how we all do business?
-What are the key organisational changes required to drive the net Zero agenda (Exec incentives, employees -participation & benefits)?
Harness The Power Of Big Data & IoT: Accelerate to Net-Zero 13.00 GMT
ClearVUE’s advanced energy monitoring solution helps businesses cut out energy waste and optimise their energy consumption, leading to improved green credentials, improved customer engagement and improved operational efficiencies.
The headlines will not be new to most people— climate change is happening, it’s caused by humans and it’s serious.
This rise in temperature will come with increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events, causing devastating impacts to people and ecosystems as well as business continuity.
While business efforts to date have focused on mitigation – and rightly so – corporate adaptation and resilience strategies will become increasingly commonplace and increasingly vital.
How current business models can respond with robust adaptation strategies to score a competitive advantage?
Why companies’ adaptation and resilience strategy should go beyond business operations and consider the broader impacts on society?
David will talk about the scientific evidence on climate change, the extent of the problem and the urgency for action.
Sarah will be talking about the impacts of climate change in the Construction industry and how new designs and retrofits are including climate change adaptation strategies along with financial impacts.
Sue will be talking about the impact of climate change on land and agriculture, land use decision making challenges, agro-ecology as part of the climate change adaptation strategy and the need to choose our adaptation path carefully.
The Carbon Cost of Water in Reaching Net Zero 11.00 GMT
Whilst the role of water efficiency in helping us adapt to climate change and changes to water availability is relatively well understood, the contribution that reducing water consumption can make to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, mitigating further climate change and reaching Net Zero is often overlooked.
Do you know how much carbon emissions are associated with your water consumption?
Climate will increasingly be a strategic factor in business decision-making processes based on risk and opportunity analysis. Corporate disclosure of climate-related risks is gaining momentum and importance in corporate financial, CSR and other reporting and disclosure obligations.
This session will give you practical guidance and key recommendations on how to:
-Chart Transitional Risks for business.
-Use TCFD reporting to raise the agenda on Board Fiduciary Duty.
Net Zero, Business Leaders and Consumer Trends 14.00 GMT
Jim Needell to discuss
-Is climate change an important issue for consumers and business leaders?
-Reaching net zero – awareness, attitudes and tensions?
-How can professionals activate behaviour change within but also outside their organisation?
-Attitudes, trends and tensions – views from the public and business leaders on sustainability and the gap between what people say and what they do, including ethnographic footage to explore blind spots and applications of behavioural science to improve sustainability.
Lucy Shea to discuss
-how to articulate complex communication internally and externally with 8 principles.
-psychographics and rules of engagement depending on your audience boards, stakeholders, consumers (bricks, golds and greens)
-how sustainability and energy managers can become agents of change.
Whether you started 12 months or 120 years ago, from the day your organisation started, you have grown into something you and your team can be genuinely proud of.
Marketing for the utility sector can be a daunting experience, but if you look after your clients, evolve with your marketplace and stay ahead of the game, you’ll reap the rewards for years to come.
That being said, if your organisation is going to reach the dizzying heights that you once envisioned, there’s an area where the utility sector often takes its foot off the gas – looking after the brand.
We know how it works all too well. You’re so busy growing your organisation that before you know it, your brand is left behind.
Suddenly your brand identity doesn’t reflect who you are, and it’s not making the right impression or connection with your target audience.
You make excuses for your lack of visual communications. You make excuses for your website. You make excuses for your dog-eared brochure that hasn’t seen a graphic designer for what seems like a decade. Excuses, excuses, excuses.
Your utility business is brilliant – it’s time to allow it to shine.
For anyone, attracting new customers can be difficult, particularly during much more challenging times. Everyone has a competitor vying for a bigger bite of the cherry, so it’s more important than ever to take the time to take a long hard look at your brand and ensure it’s in the best possible shape ever.
What is a brand?
Of course, the word brand means different things to different folks. Still, Blumilk likes to describe it as your most valuable asset. Your brand identity makes you immediately identifiable to your chosen market. More importantly, it differentiates you from your competition and leaves a memorable impression on anyone who comes into contact with it.
We’re not just talking about your logo either. We’re talking about your tone of voice, your image styling, the way you’re perceived by staff and customers, and all of your visual assets including your website, brochures, social media graphics etc. Getting your brand identity right is critical. Whether you’re starting from scratch or re-branding an established business, you must ensure your brand keeps up with you and revolutionises as your utility business grows.
Brand consistency
When we think about your brand and its identity, it’s so incredibly important that you keep it all consistent.
Best practice of brand consistency is to ensure that your entire organisation is all on the same page.
Leading brand consistency software experts, Brandkeeper, say: ‘For all companies, building a successful brand can sometimes take years of hard work to establish and even longer to maintain that reputation.
One social post, web page or even an email can change how your brand is perceived and therefore, to save running the risk of creating damage, everyone should be working from a robust house style set of assets.’
Think every element to your brand identity, as mentioned above. Don’t deviate, ensure everyone uses the correct visual assets, including logos, colour palettes and tone, and your messaging and the way you manage relationships.
Blumilk have worked with several industries but will use our utilities portfolio to demonstrate how we can bring all of the above together concisely and thoroughly stress-free.
Marketing for the Utility Sector
Take Western Power Distribution. WPD are the electricity distribution network operator for the Midlands, South West and Wales. They deliver to over 7.9 million customers over a 55,500 square kilometres service area, and they employ over 6,500 staff.
This marketing for the utility sector relationship began in December 2019 when Blumilk successfully tendered to look at the creation of a consistent and coherent brandfor the entire organisation.
Following a consultative period, we highlighted that WPD could benefit from a brand consistency overhaul, and this was completed on-time, on-budget, and to the delight of our client.
Twelve months on, Blumilk are now the only agency of choice that works with WPD, and we manage all of their branding, campaign and general day-to-day design work.
Regulated by Ofgem (the Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets), WPD is proud to have been awarded the Government’s Charter Mark, now known as the Customer Service Excellence award.
We are an extension of the comms team, and they are not just clients but friends. We also now work directly with other business areas such as safety, innovation, connections etc.
What your brand says about you
Who you are and what you stand for will be evident from your brand. Your brand is what you stand for and shows who you are as a business.
And as necessary as it is that you come across in the right light to your clients, it’s equally as important how you are seen through the eyes of your staff.
Likewise, with our relationship with Affinity Water. Through a series of intelligent and thought-provoking projects, AW has maintained and enhanced its customer-centric brand – putting their customer at the heart of everything they do.
Not only do we assist AW to meet all of their regulatory obligations, from their Finance Annual Report and Strategic Direction Statement but they can validate their commitment to being environmentally focussed, innovative and community-driven, with a sense of place and purpose, too.
Some exciting projects in-line with AW’s values and beliefs include their ‘Save 10 a Day’ campaign, internal brand-building with campaigns and initiatives to digitise processes and customer service efficiencies, a series of animations in which AW were able to bring their brand and key messages to the forefront of education together with a multi-channel approach to Drought Awareness campaigns that successfully maintained their brand consistency across all platforms.
SUMMARY
Don’t leave your brand behind. If you want your business to grow and for you to meet your commercial, environmental and regulatory commitments, your brand needs to grow with you.
Blumilkare experts at marketing for the utility sector and can work with you to tell your brand’s story in a way that will bring you to the forefront of your market and in front of your target audiences.
The process is stress and pressure-free, and we’re on hand to start the conversation just as soon as you are.
Get in touch with us now here and we’ll send you a copy of our most current Marketing For The Utility Sector Brochure.
Usually, Blumilk are huge fans of getting into the Autumnal spirit at this time of the year.
Whether we’re huddled around a fire pit with our bobble hats and oversized scarves or drinking our hot chocolates covered in marshmallows – we always seem to mark the foiled plan to burn down the Houses of Parliament with a bit of a bang.
But this year, it’s all going to be a little different. There may be no organised firework or bonfire displays to light up the skies, no meeting with friends at your local to warm up over your favourite tipple however we hope you can still mark the occasion at home with a piece of homemade Parkin (this lockdown’s banana bread?), snuggled up on the sofa in front of the fire.
Similar to every year, firefighters have begun to speak out to reinforce the dangers around bonfires and fireworks and with less of the organised fun, it’s predicted that people will turn to celebrate at home.
As you know, any kind of firework display, either home or organised, comes with its own set of risks and Blumilk have been working with one of our clients, Western Power Distribution, which covers the Midlands, the South West of England and South Wales, on a Guy Fawkes safety campaign.
Safety experts at Western Power Distribution are urging anyone who is planning bonfire celebrations at home to keep fireworks and bonfires away from power lines and substations – and always to plan their event in daylight to make sure they stay well away from electrical hazards.
WPD Health and Safety Adviser Eddie Cochrane said: “Bonfire night celebrations will be on a much smaller scale this year because of coronavirus restrictions but that doesn’t mean the safety message is any different.
“It is vital that people are aware of the dangers posed by electrical equipment when they’re planning bonfires and fireworks. On a windy night, flames and sparks can easily be blown onto overhead power lines and may cause power cuts or electrical surges.”
Blumilk created an eye-catching campaign that has been pushed out across social media for the week before 5th November.
You can see more work we have done in the utilities sector here.
Whatever you do to celebrate this year, stay safe!
Being creative market leaders in some industries seems like an impossible task. Promoting and branding your products and services when they aren’t ‘sexy’ is no marketer’s dream. However, there are ways to make yourself stand out in these sectors. We’re talking to you, businesses in the utilities sector…
The services you provide are fairly in-depth, technical, and for the most part, quite difficult to communicate. There are always regulations that need to be adhered to, stakeholders you need to communicate with, the public to be informed, and targets to meet. Getting your message across in an engaging, creative way can be tricky, so we’ve pulled together a few quick tips to help you tackle your utilities branding:
Know your Audience
Your audience changes very regularly; one day you might be speaking to a member of parliament in regard to renewable energy solutions, the next day you might be speaking to a family of four advising them on the best way to manage a bill.
You’ll need to adapt your style and language for each, employing the best ways to speak to them. An easy assumption to make is that you need to be really technical, but this is not always best practice. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that everyone will understand your product or service.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Improving your NPS score (the measurement of a customer’s willingness to recommend your product or service) year on year should be a major goal. Keep asking yourself “how likely are we to be recommended?” in the back of your mind with everything that you do and let your initiatives grow from this.
Communicate the basics
Do not over complicate things. On a day-to-day basis you will not always be discussing technical issues such as a DNS to DSO strategy (power now coming from multiple sources rather than singular). For the most part, the public doesn’t know what you actually do or on some occasions know that you exist, start by educating them on this, and allow the conversations to develop from this base.
Create Personality
You are working in a very technical environment; however, this does not mean that you have to be cold and uninviting. All companies are built by people, so it’s important that the personality of your business is conveyed to the customer. By doing this, they will be more engaged and perceptive to your brand. Allow them to see the people they’ll be interacting with.
Consider different platforms
“It’s the way we’ve always done it” won’t serve you well. Change things up; look at using new platforms and mediums to speak to your audience. A younger generation have become more prevalent and are in need of your services expecting multiple communication channels. Find out where they spend their time online and ensure that your message is always being heard.
Don’t settle for ticking a box
Show that you go above and beyond for your customers and stakeholders. You need to demonstrate that you’ve listened to feedback and that you have reacted accordingly. Showing this adaptability and championing positive change is without a doubt the best way to improve your NPS score. For example, you may be required to commission an annual report, find out from the previous year’s documents what people responded to best/didn’t respond to, and use this for growth. The longer you can hold someone’s attention the more likely it is that your information will be absorbed, keep this simple and visually appealing.
Identify your weaknesses
Do what you do well and do it well, there is no need to cover every single base. The utilities sector is a fast-paced, ever-changing environment. If you don’t have a marketing department, outsource this function. If you have a design team who keep producing the same looking content, seek out a second opinion.
Blumilk are a multi-award-winning brand, reputation and campaigns agency for the utilities sector and has been helping solve business challenges for over 20 years. At Blumilk, we specialise in strategic brand, campaign, regulatory, and overall reputation projects for clients within the utilities sector and are driven by a team of world-class creatives and strategists. Together we generate solutions that make a real difference for our clients.
If you are in the utility sector and want to ensure that your communications are engaging your audience, or just need advice on the best ways to meet your goals we are always available for a chat. Please contact 0191 249 8384 or info@blumilk.com
