Eating my words

I take it back, UK renewable energy suddenly got awesome at advertising.

With pleasingly good timing, a week after writing my first blog post on the lack of stylish and engaging adverts for renewable energy, I have spotted two campaigns that I think hit the spot perfectly.

First up, Offshore Wind Works. I saw their poster in Green Park tube station, and was immediately sold. A beautiful image, playing on how wind turbines can fit into the traditional English landscape (and, indeed, culture) alongside a thoroughly modern and convincing message. The message avoids the righteous tone so often found surrounding environmental issues, and instead focusses on the UK being a global leader in renewable energy, with capacity to develop much further. This leans towards discussions of offshore wind power making financial sense on a competitive global stage, rather than appealing to softer appeals to our conscious. Excellent stuff.

Next, SSE Scottish and Southern Electric, a company not exclusively using renewable energy, but an increasingly strong user and advocate of wind and hydro power. This TV advert is brand new, but will probably be more easily recognisable thanks to its heavy coverage in the last few days. The advert follows Maya, the Orangutan, travel through urban spaces, marvelling at all the things so embedded in our lives that are energy dependent. The idea, therefore, is for us to ‘see energy through fresh eyes’, and realise how dependent we are on it, and thus how important it is to find alternative, renewable sources. This advert achieves the emotional connection best out of the two, with the use of a character so easy to engage with, alongside the fact that it is a brilliantly executed piece of film that stands out a mile from most other TV adverts at the moment.

So, there you are, Orangutans and classical paintings of wind turbines have made me eat my words on renewable energy’s poor advertising efforts. Long may it last – I hope to see more campaigns continuing the effort in future.