A bespoke TV and gaming campaign promoting the British Gas Generation Green initiative achieved a 9.7% share of children aged 4-9, representing a 2.05% increase on the slot average.
"The perceptions of British Gas have changed amongst children. We not only reached our target audience, the results show that they really engaged with the activity. We view it as a huge success."
Baljit Sanghera, British Gas
In 2008, British Gas launched its Generation Green initiative to establish its strong environmental credentials with local communities, schools and consumers. By completing green activities, children, teachers and parents earn green leaves which are then redeemed as rewards for the participating school.
As Ben Louis of ITV puts it, "Green issues sometimes aren’t inherently interesting to kids." Our campaign needed to engage that younger audience, as well as build awareness in the wider community and drive parents and schools to sign up for an Energy Savers Report, which could ultimately help them cut their energy use and save money.
In collaboration with British Gas and media agency Carat, we developed a campaign designed to harness children’s passion for fun TV and gaming.
- Working with Endemol, we made 10 x 5-minute TV programmes in which kids competed in green challenges. Green Up Your Life was aired daily at 15:50 on CiTV for a month.
- Because the series was ad-funded, British Gas was entitled to branded break bumpers. There were also carefully placed spot ads, which furthered the association with British Gas.
- A credit promo at the end of the show drove children to the CiTV website to get more information and watch themed advertorials. From there, they could go on to play an online game and become more engaged with Generation Green.
- The children’s gaming website Popcorn.co.uk featured fully integrated branded characters, and hosted the game.
- The show was also promoted on ITV.com, Friends Reunited and through press, TV, cinema and online ads.
In terms of acquisition:
- 544,000 individuals watched Green Up Your Life between 15th September and 10th October 2008.
- "One of the most impressive aspects of the results was that the TV viewing was very strong. It started higher than we anticipated and through the first run maintained an average of 50,000 kids," says John Pile, Carat.
- The show achieved a share of 9.7% of children aged 4-9, representing a 2.05% increase on the slot average.
- Over 9,000 schools to date have signed up for Generation Green, tripling the original target of 3,000.
- By April 2009, 32,051,992 green leaves have been earnt, for schools to redeem against rewards.
In terms of brand:
- Viewers were 108% more likely than non-viewers to see Generation Green as a positive environmental example. And 43% of people were more likely to see British Gas as one too.
- 100% of those who watched the programme and played the game said they’d learned something new about the environment.