Using Hyper-Local Creative to Raise Awareness of Energy Efficiency

The NHSaves^® utility partners - Eversource, Liberty, New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, and Unitil - engaged KSV to develop a statewide awareness campaign that would resonate in a way that felt unique to the wide-ranging experiences of those living and working in the Granite State. With customers that fell within the commercial, residential, income-eligible, rural, urban, and municipal spaces (among others), we knew that a broad messaging strategy would be necessary. We also knew that something more intentional could really hit home and drive the kind of engagement and awareness that the utility partners were looking for.

New Hampshire is a particularly unique state, mixing mountain scenery with lakeside views, and quiet, rural communities with larger, bustling metropolitan areas. Winters are heavily snowy with plenty of ice, while summertime can reach boiling temperatures with humidity to boot. While that sounds polarizing to most, there’s one main thing to note about Granite Staters: They love it. This uniting, underlying tenet of the classic New Hampshire mindset is how our creative team tethered their idea for the campaign.

Enter, the “Thrival Guide”: a charming guidebook chock-full of tips and tricks about how to love a New Hampshire winter or summer season through the lens of energy efficiency offerings from the NHSaves utility partners. Jackie Demers, associate creative director and one of the leads for this project, noted that while “some ideas take a significant amount of effort to uncover, the Thrival Guide was one idea which emerged really naturally.” Drawing inspiration from forestry visuals, camp iconography, and vintage maps, the Thrival Guide came to life in the form of a digital catalogue. With every “turn” of a new page, the viewer is enveloped into the culture of New Hampshire. Hand-drawn illustrations evoke the quiet nostalgia of a night by the campfire on Lake Winnipesaukee or the energy-efficient comfort of a night in with your new mini-split heat pump system.

“It should never feel like the top of Mount Washington inside your office.”

The Thrival Guide is not only an engaging and approachable resource that resonates with New Hampshire citizens; it is doubly useful as a touchpoint for the utility partners’ customers to learn more about their energy efficiency offerings – instilling in them a newfound sense of trust and care that previously may not have existed. Demers added, “The lighthearted approach to providing straightforward energy [efficiency] content helps to bring the lofty subject matter into a consumable and interesting content space.”

Coupled with the Thrival Guide was a holistic media campaign, featuring a collection of social media placements, digital channel executions, and print ads that strategically targeted populations in the most rural communities of the state. It was important to us and the client that the diversity of channels was a nod to understanding the unique regions of New Hampshire, ensuring that even the most rural of communities would be reached and engaged with the campaign.

There were a few fundamental components that helped bring this campaign to fruition: strategy that wholly centered the audience, and trust between the client and our team. The NHSaves utility partners were open and collaborative throughout the project, allowing our creative team the freedom to expand their thinking and generate a concept that would shine. The vision came to life by tapping into Granite Staters’ innate love for their community and then motivating them to engage with their state’s energy efficiency programs through clever and insightful messaging that was uniquely crafted with them in mind, capturing and keeping their attention.

“Weatherizing your home is like a throw blanket for the soul.”

Going beyond traditional CTAs and diving into the hyper-local nuances of a life lived in New Hampshire is helping Granite Staters connect with our campaign and view the NHSaves utility partners as synonymous with energy efficiency. In the first six months of the campaign, there has been an 80% year-over-year increase in on-site rebate submission conversions and a 113% uptick in social media followers, a win we can all celebrate. Ultimately, the collaborative effort illustrated the joy of succeeding in striking the balance between sticking to fundamentals and taking a leap of faith.

Check out the full scope of the campaign, and then head over to our other case studies to see how we’ve worked with clients across the energy and sustainability space to pinpoint creative solutions that drive real impact.