British Gas: Small team, big team, huge team

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1 Category: Marketing Teamwork British Gas: Small team, big team, huge team How smart teamwork made the British Gas & Nectar partnership launch fly Summary In Winter 2010, the business was under pressure. Wholesale increases meant a price rise in winter, and the business was preparing for a customer and media backlash. As predicted, when the price announcement hit, more customers switched and affinity dropped meaning something had to be done, and quickly. A small Marketing team of Planners from within British Gas and its partner agencies worked on the problem and surprisingly, recommended a large scale Nectar launch as the answer. A partnership with Nectar had been due to start around that time in order to strengthen the brand promise count on us to look after your world and to act on customer demands, but usually seen as a tactical proposition it wasn t the obvious choice to mitigate consumer negativity. The challenge stepped up a gear. There was no time to waste in launching the campaign, and the team was now tasked with taking this well-used tactical proposition, and not only driving awareness and sign up, but also using it to mitigate negativity and stem immediate churn. A simple insight from a customer, Everybody likes to be thanked, provided the team with the emotional creative glue that proved to be critical to its success. An integrated campaign was built around this core creative thought, and cleverly executed by a larger Marketingled team who in turn galvanised the entire organisation behind the cause, optimising chances of meeting multiple objectives. Results surpassed expectations: Awareness overtook predecessor EDF in the first 8 weeks Enrolments hit 1 million by the end of the campaign The Thank You campaign reversed a decline in affinity (NPS + 6% for all customers) Churn lessened by 5% whilst the campaign was live The campaign delivered an ROI of 2.54 to every 1 spent The approach to team working and enterprise engagement became a blueprint for British Gas execution of future campaigns Achieving so much, so quickly was only possible by adapting the structure of the team throughout the process, and even more exciting is that this approach has changed how we have worked since we re achieving more and we re doing it faster Will Orr, Marketing Director, British Gas

2 Category: Marketing Teamwork British Gas: Small team, team, huge team How smart teamwork made the British Gas & Nectar partnership launch fly

3 Category: Marketing Teamwork British Gas: Small team, big team, huge team How smart teamwork made the British Gas & Nectar partnership launch fly Looking after our customers worlds meant rewarding loyalty Prior to 2009, British Gas had been losing customers to newer competitors for a number of years. It played its part in price wars to keep plugging the leaky customer bucket, but consumers were growing tired of the energy sector s reward to switch vs. reward to stay conventions. Looking for radical change, British Gas launched its new big idea Count on us to look after your world and a new Planet Home creative in early Its sights were firmly set on re-establishing an emotional connection with customers. Yet the challenge was intensifying Wholesale rises meant British Gas had to put up its prices amidst a freezing winter, and so a customer and media backlash was predicted. As forecast, when the November announcement hit, churn increased and affinity dropped (Figure 1). British Gas needed a plan and fast. British Gas NPS Oct Jan (TNS) Price rise Figure 1: Decrease in Customer affinity (NPS) Small team to crack the problem British Gas had a well established team culture and knew who to engage. A small strategic team was already in place, meeting regularly to set strategy and solve more tactical business briefs. The team was made up of the Head of Marketing Strategy, British Gas and Planners from their partner creative, media, PR and digital agencies. Answering this brief was a big ask, even by this team s standards: developing a marketing initiative ready to launch in January 2012, to help address short-term negativity as well as long-term goals, was no mean feat. Identifying Nectar as the answer Over 2010, British Gas had been acting on customer frustrations and was busy establishing a tangible way of rewarding customer loyalty. Consumer research had confirmed Nectar as the preferred choice, over and above a proprietary rewards programme. Further research identified 60% of British households use Nectar, over-indexing among high value British Gas segments, so it made sense to take over the partnership from EDF. The small team seized on the timely launch of the Nectar partnership as a potential answer to the problem. Although a loyalty programme is a familiar and tactical marketing tool it was proposed that done properly, turning the partnership launch into a multi-channel communications campaign would help meet its commercial goals longer term, but could also mitigate the immediate impact of the price rise. British Gas: Small team, big team, huge team 2

4 Positioning Nectar as a Thank You to all our customers With the business under pressure, and the brand out of customer favour, any mitigating marketing communications had to be extremely hard-working. Nectar was a tactical proposition, and not even an original one at that, so the small team of planners needed to get the positioning right. Choosing to launch Nectar at this time delivered tangible value, but the real challenge was to frame this in a fresh, emotional way, that didn t feel too out of kilter with the current customer mood. The team researched different communications positionings until a seemingly obvious insight came to them from a customer in a focus group: Everybody likes to be thanked. Continued qualitative research showed us this simple emotional truth couldn t be bettered. So the Thank You creative idea was born, and used as the glue for all customer and internal marketing channels. The team agreed detailed objectives: 1) Awareness: to surpass predecessor EDF as known Nectar energy partner 2) Action: to get people to enrol and to encourage new customer behaviours 3) Affinity: to improve customer relationships 4) Retention : to help reduce churn, in the short and long term The activity was booked to break on 31st January 2011, so there was no time to waste. Figure 2: Thank You TV A bigger team effort to bring the Thank You to life British Gas recognised that bringing the campaign to life in such a short time needed exceptional effort. Now was the time to engage specialists from across Marketing, so they identified leads from teams including Advertising, Direct Marketing, Insight, creative and media agencies, to name but a few. Each had clear responsibility for delivery of an element of the Thank You campaign but also to work closely with each other to ensure swift delivery and integration. Location played an important role in the success of this team; with little time to waste on travel or the miscommunication that sometimes occurs without face to face contact, key personnel from Nectar were adopted by British Gas and worked from their offices to ensure they were involved every step of the way. The close relationship between the internal, agency and the partner teams presented many opportunities: One creative solution and key visual was adapted for use across all customer communications material creating a truly integrated campaign Digital display was cleverly utilised through retargeting those who had visited the Nectar website. By placing a tracking pixel on the Nectar website British Gas was able to serve display creative to consumers they knew were already actively engaged Nectar collectors. British Gas: Small team, big team, huge team 3

5 In Direct channels, British Gas targeted certain Nectar segments to encourage sign up amongst their highest value customers Figure 4: Thank You office floor mats, staff roadshows, Planet Home engineers Figure 3: Bill promoting Nectar-incentivised change and targeted A huge team to deliver the Thank You Thoughts now turned to engaging a huge team to drive even greater success. British Gas engaged the largest team at their disposal - their workforce of over 30,000 employees. The Marketing team pulled together an extensive engagement programme to turn the 30,000 employees into an additional, powerful marketing channel. The team wanted to get the entire business excited about their own Nectar rewards, but crucially to enable them to become part of the spreading the Thank You. The engagement programme was rolled out across Britain by the Marketing team themselves, who travelled from Edinburgh to Southampton to spread the word. Exhibition stands, foyer mats, agent desk aids, screen savers, pens and chocolates were all created in line with the Thank You creative, and launched to coincide with the customer activity. British Gas engineers were briefed to deliver personal Thank Yous during home visits, with the help of special promotional material. Four of these engineers were even selected to star in the TV and outdoor Rami, Carl, Jose and Rob making celebrities out of some of the team and creating further internal buzz. Teamwork that reaped commercial rewards British Gas Marketing Director, Will Orr, commended the campaign as an outright commercial success: The results demonstrate the power of a simple idea executed brilliantly through all our channels The campaign delivered against the business objectives in a way that surpassed all expectations: 1) Awareness Awareness overtook incumbent EDF in first 8 weeks (20% spontaneous awareness TNS, March 2011) British Gas was 2nd only to Sainsbury s as the most associated Nectar partner within 8 weeks of launch (Nectar March 2011) Figure 5: Awareness overtaking EDF Source: TNS 1 Litchfield Qualitative Research, November, 2010 British Gas: Small team, big team, huge team 4

6 It won praise from outside of the organisation with British Gas voted Nectar Partner of the Year by all the Nectar coalition partners. Nectar Client Development Director, Will Shuckburgh, proclaimed it: The best launch of a partner in the Nectar scheme we ve ever seen. 2) Action Enrolment in the British Gas Nectar Scheme Over 1 million sign ups by the end of the 8 week campaign, far surpassing targets for the entire year. Enrolment over-indexed by 220% in the targeted higher value customer segments 3) Affinity As hoped, the warmth of the creative idea translated into warmth for the brand when negativity was rife. Thank You also reached number 6 in Marketing Week s Adwatch and was singled out for both its integration and its affinity building ability: That s what makes this campaign so clever and effective. It is a beautifully integrated, lovable, engaging set of creative and it goes a long way to generate warm feelings. 2 NPS increased by 18% amongst those who enrolled whilst the campaign was on air (TNS) NPS increased by 9% amongst those who were simply aware of the message during the campaign s air-time. (TNS) PR returned to net positive for the first time post price rise (TNS) The brand saw an increase in brand trust (amidst price rise negativity) by 8% (TNS) British Gas NPS Oct April 11 (TNS) Figure 6: Enrolments Driving new customer behaviours: Propensity to buy into additional products and services increased amongst those who enrolled during the campaign period, and 377K additional Home Services accounts were opened off the back of Nectar enrolment. Figure 7: Reversing the decline in affinity (NPS) 5% of customers switched to paperless Direct Debit as a result of the Nectar campaign One third of the enrolled base now self-meter read, significantly more than the un-enrolled base. Opt in for British Gas contact increased by 53% and resulted in 814K additional customer contacts in the 8 week period of activity. Figure 8: A switch to positive PR 2 Craig Mawdsley, Joint Head of Planning at AMV, Adwatch, Marketing, 9th March 2011 British Gas: Small team, big team, huge team 5

7 4) Retention Churn lessened by 5% during the 8 week campaign period (for Nectar enrolled customers) which was deemed fantastic against the post price rise backdrop. Additional marked achievements It also delivered additional acquisition benefits: Acquiring new British Gas customers Propensity modelling allowed optimisation of data usage through all channels. Direct Mail delivered sales uplift of up to 250%. Energy acquisition exceeded sales targets more than 300K energy accounts were won via the campaign. Acquiring new Nectar collectors Delivering over 350k brand new Nectar collectors proved how the campaign also drove incremental value for Nectar. Teamwork at it s best An initial small team of strategic planners developed the campaign idea, a bigger Marketing team brought it to life through integrated communications, and a huge team - the entire enterprise - engaged to communicate the Thank You to customers. The approach became a blueprint for the British Gas way of marketing. Achieving so much so quickly was only possible by adapting the structure of the team throughout the process, and even more exciting is that it has changed how we have worked since we re achieving more and we re doing it faster. (Will Orr, Marketing Director, British Gas) Value back to the business Overall the Thank You campaign delivered an ROI of 2.54 to every 1 spent. The reduction in churn, combined with Nectar-driven customer behaviour changes, equated to 3.8m gross profit from enrolled customers within the first 6 months. British Gas: Small team, big team, huge team 6