DOMINION
When you do business in a fundamentally regulated environment, your company’s corporate reputation is perhaps its most valuable asset. With policymakers, regulators, influencers and customers, paid media for Dominion both elevated and maintained a level of corporate reputation essentially unheard of for an energy company (consistently measuring in the mid- to high 80s).
As a result, Dominion was able to meet and/or surpass nearly all of its business growth and expansion goals over an 8-year period of time. And all this was accomplished while continuing to deliver Dominion’s friendly, knowledgeable and caring brand personality to the company’s most important audiences, across multiple media and channels.
Often, an effort like this starts with reminding people about just how many places and ways in which electricity touches and powers their lives. And sometimes, music and sound can do that far better than even the very best words.
Electricity Ensemble
Every Day Campaign
But most of the time, words—memorable and strategically focused copy—do play a core role in helping to define a brand and the business it does. For example, a new theme line for Dominion, “What We Do Every Day, Powers Your Every Day,” helped to launch the Every Day corporate reputation campaign. And using scenarios ranging from small businesses powered by Dominion to deadly storm outages to the myriad ways in which Dominion supports the communities it powers, the Every Day campaign has been extremely successful in-market and with key influencer audiences since 2008.
Advice
When energy companies encourage people to use less electricity, customers can become a little skeptical. If companies like Dominion make money by selling electricity, why would they suggest ways for customers to conserve? The reasons are important, but complicated; so rather than trying to use paid media to explain, use humor to capture and hold customers’ attention. Then, in a more expansive medium—like on the company’s website—those reasons can be better spelled out. And when was the last time an energy company’s advertising actually made you laugh?
Comfortably Sleeping
Most energy companies have programs designed to help people who are struggling to pay their power bills, and Dominion is no exception. Their EnergyShare program, while generously supported by the company, also benefits tremendously from customer contributions. Research showed that some customers are motivated by smiles and positive reinforcement, while other customers are motivated by not-so-gentle reminders of what those who struggle must endure. So why choose one path when two different approaches would drive so many more contributions? We didn’t.
1986 Update
Stock Ads
Dominion’s support of the communities it powers isn’t limited to helping customers with their bills. From the arts to education to conservation strategies to power restoration efforts, Dominion’s willingness to engage and support communities at a very high level often left them with media opportunities that could come up very quickly. So what better to have close at hand than a campaign designed to be tailored and produced with ease internally. The “stock ads” that follow, as well as dozens of others just like them, enabled Dominion to manage time and costs while still maintaining their brand essence.
Boots
Project Healing Waters
Every now and then, a company does something, supports something, so moving that telling people about it isn’t self-aggrandizing, it’s essentially a public service. And Dominion’s sponsorship of Project Healing Waters, a program designed to help wounded warriors once they returned home, fits that description perfectly. Their dedication to our country’s armed forces is decades old, and it’s only getting stronger as our soldiers come home from Afghanistan and the Middle East. The program may look like it’s about fly fishing but there’s far more than that going on below the surface.