In 2017 E.ON embarked on a radical change. They rolled out a number of transformational customer initiatives and committed to building a sustainable future.
But energy companies don’t tend to spark enthusiasm. Outside paying their day-to-day bills, most people had little reason to engage with E.ON. Our challenge was to help E.ON spread the word about their new initiatives and, ultimately, drive consideration.
Our answer was to partner with Gorillaz – a band that epitomises technical innovation, creativity and collaboration – and create a global campaign promoting E.ON’s new solar storage technology. At the heart of the campaign was an epic music video where everything seen on screen was powered entirely by solar batteries.
Then we created an ecosystem of additional content to extend engagement and explain more about the technology. This included ‘E.ON Kong Solar Studio’, a concept based on Gorillaz’s original Kong Studios. Using the power generated by E.ON’s solar PV panels, Kong Studios 2.0 came to life at night, providing aspiring music artists with the opportunity to create new tracks that later appeared online at eon.com/gorillaz.
The film catapulted E.ON into popular culture and with over 82.6m views. The result was a huge lift in brand (141%) and creative (97%) interest in the UK and up to a 443% increase in Italy. Gorillaz fans went wild for the content, with thousands visiting the Kong Solar Studio – some queuing for more than two hours to do so – and hundreds of thousands sharing the video organically.
But, more importantly, our audience suddenly became interested in E.ON’s solar power technology. For an otherwise faceless energy supplier, E.ON had begun to stand out. It was, for the first time in its history, just a little bit cool.