It would be pretty hard to find anyone who doesn’t like Wallace and Gromit. The haphazard duo embody a very particular form of English eccentricity and ingenuity
The ‘Back the bid’ campaign is aimed at highlighting the business benefits to SMEs of hosting the World Cup (and an estimated £3.2bn boost to the economy) and has featured TV spots chronicling Wallace and Gromit’s money-making activities as the pair flings pies to football supporters via a shaky contraption.It is their infectious enthusiasm – often in the face of technical adversity – that spurred NPower to choose them to front its latest campaign to encourage small and medium-sized businesses to back England’s bid to host the World Cup in 2018.
The energy company, who is the official World Cup bid supporter, is hoping to replicate a campaign it ran during the Ashes last summer. It monitored the impact the event had on local businesses and used it to emphasise the savings that businesses could make by using less energy.
NPower’s PR manager, Nicolas McHugh, says that NPower’s association with football – it also sponsors the Football League – is aimed at the heart of the SME community. “Small businesses are an integral part of football clubs and they support them in everything from selling food or flags at stands to pubs round the corner, and they are real fans.”
Businesses signing up to NPower are being given a £45 voucher to spend on football strips and match-day tickets with their local football league club.
Creating the feel-good factor
‘Back the bid’, says McHugh, is a branding exercise, rather then a target-focused campaign. “We are a British company and when an opportunity arises to galvanise support for the country on a larger scale we want to join that. It’s not just about keeping the lights on in industry as it were, but creating a feel-good factor for the whole country.”
Enter Wallace and Gromit. McHugh explains that the characters are not allowed to sell NPower’s products explicitly, but they are there to reflect the brand’s identity, “They are not salespeople and that is not the intention,” he says. “Wallace and Gromit have a cheeky glint in their eyes and we want them to encourage people to investigate and check out NPower.”
McHugh continues, “Wallace and Gromit are the nation’s heroes but it’s also the people behind the characters, Aardman Animations, who are so talented and respected by our customers.”
The Plasticine pair is being employed as brand ambassadors to strengthen what McHugh calls NPower’s “dynamic, younger and faster-paced brand image.” McHugh compares the relationship between competitor British Gas (“very shirt and tie, corporate”) and NPower to that between fashionable Apple and staid Microsoft or sexy Virgin and stuffy British Airways.
Campaign climax
The five-month ‘Back the bid’ campaign will come to a climax in August with the arrival of FIFA delegates to the UK and will end in December when a decision is made.
As part of the campaign, NPower has also launched its price beater promotion offering SMEs a 10 per cent saving on their energy bills when they switch to NPower. Direct mail activity has targeted over 300 SMEs that could benefit from increased tourism within 10 miles of potential host cities. Business sectors targeted include hotels and restaurants, real estate and construction and printing, as well as wholesale trade.
The energy company is also travelling to potential World Cup host cities across the UK to produce a series of customer case studies detailing how SMEs have become more energy efficient. The first case study looks at Aardman director Nick Park’s favourite pie shop Pieminster in Bristol.
