Title	THE ELECTRIC REVOLUTION
Brand	E.ON
Product/Service	-
Category	G03. Single-market Campaign
Entrant	E.ON SVERIGE Malmö, SWEDEN
Idea Creation	EHRENSTRAHLE Malmö, SWEDEN
PR	EHRENSTRAHLE Malmö, SWEDEN
Production	HOBBY FILM Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production 2	JEFF RICHT PHOTOGRAPHY Malmö, SWEDEN
Production 3	STUDIO MINT Gothenburg, SWEDEN
Production 4	MUSIC SUPER CIRCUS Stockholm, SWEDEN
Post Production	HOBBY FILM Stockholm, SWEDEN
Post Production 2	JEFF RICHT PHOTOGRAPHY Malmö, SWEDEN
Additional Company	GADE18 Malmö, SWEDEN

Name	Company	Position
Christoffer Petersson	Ehrenstråhle	Account Director
Christian Godden	Ehrenstråhle	Strategy Lead
Lisen Axelsson	Ehrenstrahle	Account Manager
Simona Karlsson	Ehrenstråhle	Account Manager
Karl Arildsson	Ehrenstråhle	Creative Lead
Mikael Noaksson	Ehrenstråhle	Copywriter
Mathias Svensson	Ehrenstråhle	Copywriter
Markus Bjurman	Ehrenstråhle	Creative Director
Allex Olsson	Ehrenstråhle	PR & Growth Planner
John Schulish	Ehrenstråhle	Designer
Charlotte Harbäck	Ehrenstråhle	Designer
Linn Persson	Ehrenstråhle	Designer

Why is this work relevant for PR?

Because the idea is designed around earned media attention. Without earned media, the campaign would not have been a success. The campaign was planned and launched in two parts. The first part with a purpose of generating attention around the subject, and the latter part to capitalize on that attention and tie it to the E.ON brand in paid media.

Background

For years and years energy companies in Sweden have talked about “sustainability” and being “fossil-free”. All in a similar manner. Working towards sustainability isn’t something that’s easily applauded in Sweden. It’s demanded. But despite being well informed about the environment, charging boxes and charging points for electric cars are still few and far apart. A fact that is holding people back from making the conversion to electric cars. Sadly, this isn’t something that E.ON can fix on their own; Sweden is sparsely populated, and no company can afford to install charging points all over the country. The brief was to come up with our own creative idea that would differentiate E.ON from the competition, build the brand in both existing and new target audiences, change the perception of E.ON in to a company that is a driving force within e-mobility and, last but not least, sell charging boxes.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Instead of just building a ton of charging points, we wanted to inspire people to share their private charging box with others. That way we could “build” new public charging “stations” all over Sweden and add them to the E.ON Drive application. Said and done. To show people how easy it was, we created the first, full service, non-profit, electric gas station in the world, on a private farm in suburban Malmö. At Olssons Elmack people could swing by, grab a cup of coffee and lunch, whilst charging their cars using a charging box from E.ON. Our goal was to start by grabbing the attention of local media, before moving on to the national stage. With this in mind we created a really low-budget campaign, consisting of home-made road signs, direct advertising and organic SoMe content. And after a few days the two biggest local papers picked up the story.

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

A big energy company like E.ON has most of Sweden as a target audience, so we knew we needed something with a big impact in order to reach as many as possible. We also knew that Swedish media would be reluctant to write a story that’s directly related to a big brand like E.ON. But we felt we really needed earned media attention before launching our campaign in paid media. So we created and launched a new brand (Olssons Elmack), with no apparent connection to E.ON, in order to carry the message. And then we gave that brand its own marketing channels to communicate and get media attention.

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

Local media in Sweden gets their stories from the readers. And national media gets many of their stories from local media. With Olssons Elmack, we knew we had a story that the local media would indulge in, but not if E.ON was the sender of the message. That’s why we created the low budget, home-made campaign - so that other people would see it and contact the local papers. And they did. To increase the chances of national media also picking up the story, the local articles were then seeded directly from the SoMe accounts of Olssons Elmack. Timeline: - Created SoMe accounts for Olssons Elmack - Organic posts teasing the launch - Olssons Elmack opens - Low budget, home-made campaign - Articles in local media - Seeding - National media picks up the story - Campaign in paid media starts

List the results (30% of vote)

All of the articles that covered Olssons Elmack were in depth articles, not just short notices. The initiative also managed to get an over 3 minute long interview in the two biggest channels in public radio (P3 & P4), and it trended on Reddit. Worth noticing is also the fact that we launched a brand new word (elmack / electric gas station) and tied the E.ON brand to that word. - Top of mind in segment +133% (from 3% to 7%). Clear market leader for the first time - Brand perception +81% (from 2,7 to 4,9, YouGov Brand Index) - Beat the sales goals by 54% (charging boxes) - Awareness, retailer of charging boxes + 45% (from 22% to 33%) - 9+ million earned media impressions (population 10 million)

Please tell us how the work was designed / adapted for a single country / region / market.

The typical swede is well aware of the need to become fossil-free and more sustainable. We gladly recycle, commute with public transport, bike to work and have online meetings. We travel by train rather than flying domestic. The point is - we get it. Today every brand, not just energy companies, talks about just how sustainable they are. It’s something we take for granted. So just talking about sustainability and the benefits of driving electrically, wouldn’t raise a single eyebrow. We needed to actually do something. The problem with charging stations being few and far apart is also a geographical one. Sweden’s a big country with a small population. It’s not economically sound to simply build charging points all over the country. Our idea derives from this problem and might not have worked as well (or at all) in other markets.