Utility Experiential Marketing
The ongoing adventures of bringing energy efficiency outreach to utility customers across Southern California.
It was 1999 and I had just finished my first Super Bowl. I need the next gig (that the thing about freelancing, you always need the next gig), and it materialized in the form of managing an outreach program for Southern California Edison in the form of The ENERGY STAR Mobile Education Unit. More affectionately known as “the bus”. I became an enthusiastic support of the Green movement and energy efficiency, which led to a 15 year career managing outreach programs and Experiential Marketing for various utility programs in Southern California.
SDG&E Home Depot End-Cap
I came with this idea one day while hanging around in Home Depot talking to customers on a lighting research project. Luckily, when I pitched it to SDG&E they were open to the idea. Then we had to sell it to Home Depot corporate, which was not easy. It took roughly 10 months from first pitch to the client to actually loading in our end cap to the Genesee Home Depot. The technology portion was just a basic website with Mixpanel tracking on the back end so we could analyze engagement. I had a glorious plan for Earl the Washer to become a star on Twitter but was shot down. Utilities have no sense of humor or adventure.
SCE Operation Lamp Exchange
This marketing program ran from 2006 to 2014, during which time we exchanged 272,697 old incandescent lamps for new fluorescent lamps. We staged lamp exchanges in 36 cities served by Southern California Edison and registered over 19 million hours of kilowatt hour savings. OLE was my baby. I wrote the initial bid for it, did most of the program management in the early years, designed the data collection program, and served as Marketing Director. We marketed in English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese. On our biggest event weekends we had a staff of over 40 working and would exchange around 10,000 lamps.
SCE Mobile Energy Unit
Shown in the image is the second redesign of “the bus”, a converted motorhome that we toured the SCE service territory with to teach people about energy efficiency. The first version of the MEU was built in 1999 to promote the ENERGY STAR program, we added considerably to version 1.0 to make it a more engaging and fun experience for SCE’s customers to learn about saving energy.
The unit toured everywhere in the SCE service territory, with a heavy emphasis on retail stores where appliances were sold. I feel confident in saying that there is not a single festival or fair that we have never brought this exhibit out to in SCE territory over the past 16 years.
