The idea was straightforward – talk about why people might consider paying more for energy. We would start the conversation, then watch it grow. People would reach their own conclusions on just how important clean renewable energy is to all of us once they knew how it worked. Who better to explain it than those who had already made the decision to support the environment?

While the concept was simple, the execution would be less so. By placing this in the care of a partner with years of experience, both creative agency and client could focus their attention where it would be best served – the consumer.

Oddly would take care of the production of the campaign both in Facebook and through rich media ads. The showpiece would be a video wall, filled with user-submitted content created by fans of the brand who wanted to tell the world why it is important to support clean renewable energy. This presented a few challenges, as it would mean stepping outside of the usual functionality of Facebook. Used to unique challenges, the developers at Oddly got busy coming up with solutions.

Along with the video wall, Oddly would handle much of the design production, working with suggestions from the creative director to flesh out the concept, including a lawnsign application, custom video uploader, and several other products like video ads that would run parallel to television and radio campaigns.

On the technical end of things, the major challenges involved working with Facebook video, a feature still under development at Facebook. We briefly considered creating our own custom solution, but we wanted all of the social media features such as sharing, liking, and commenting. We went with a solution that provided the best of both worlds, using the established facebook video player, but replacing the video uploader with one of our own that would allow us to put a database in place and various other extra features.

The end result was a beautiful video wall full of enthusiastic Bullfrog fans, that also allowed for moderation by administrators. They could pin favorite videos to the top of the wall, and give them custom thumbnails if they wished as well. And they could put up their own videos to show people how Bullfrog power works.

During the major campaign period between Earth Hour (March 27) and Earth Day (April 22), the client tripled the number of active fans they had on Facebook. Entire threads sprung up with new fans adding to the conversation around renewable power. The green logo began showing up in profile pictures, proudly declaring “I pay more”.

The campaign caught attention for it’s candor and unique position. In an interview with the Globe and Mail, John St.’s creative director Angus Tucker acknowledged the difference, saying “..you turn the TV on, and 70 percent of the ads are saying ‘it does what their does, for a lot less’ “
He continued “we thought that the organic parallel held, fairtrade coffee, and even things like sweatshop-free clothing…these are decisions that millions of Canadians are making every day and we thought the time was right to take this way of thinking into energy”

We at Oddly are proud to have been a part of Bullfrog’s first foray into sending their message out via multi-media channels, providing conversation tools that are active right to this day.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/going-beyond-the-dark-green-with-no-nonsense-pitch/article1504950/