With the rate of business and residential growth in California, the demand on energy supplies is a real issue for PG&E. The company's continuing goal is to get both business and residential customers to use less energy and thereby curb demand. The PG&E SmarterEnergy program was developed to do just that, but interest in the program was not reaching the company's goals.

To generate interest in the SmarterEnergy program, Eis Design began by gathering information to understand what the target audience thought about conserving energy and how to generate interest in this low-priority category. The goal was to increase traffic to the SmarterEnergy website by 50%.

What we found was that the audience liked the idea of saving energy from a feel good standpoint, but thought it would be a hassle to do so and didn’t understand the cost savings they could enjoy.

Our strategy was to bypass the environmental story, which was not a motivator, and engage the audience’s interest in a low- hassle way to save money. To add a more urgent motivator, new cash rebates were offered on energy-efficient equipment and lighting.

Our solution was first to keep it simple. Since the target audience was interested in energy efficiency, but thought it would take too much time and effort, we needed to get their attention quickly. Eis Design developed an empowering campaign that got to the point. The message: save money, and find out all you need to know in one easy-to-get-to spot, pge.com/smarterenergy. The execution: clean, simple, with an emphasis on the main benefit.

The result of the campaign was a dramatic increase in traffic to the website, with customers taking action to become more energy efficient.