From larva to butterfly — how an energy incumbent became a green challenger brand
A big challenge for incumbents in liberalised energy markets is rebranding. There is a certain luxury problems for the companies that have been operating since well before the opening and unbundling of markets as they inherited all of its customers but they came with the baggage of decades of perception, for better or for worse.
Challengers in the market have the luxury of designing their brands from the start, whom to cater to and how they should be perceived and they need to fight for every new customer and persuade them to enter into a relationship. The challenge for the incumbent utilities is to adapt to this new reality. They need to realise their new role in the market as challengers take bites of their market share — one niche or segment at a time.
Most incumbents have gone the way of updating their logo and perhaps get an expensive campaign to remind consumers of their existence. Eneco from the Netherlands did, however, take a bold stand and truly reinvent the brand from the inside-out.
Eneco was one of the first established energy utilities in the world to become fully renewable and became the frontrunner in the Dutch energy industry in the production of electricity from sustainable sources. At CHARGE 2016, Regine Alewijnse, Brand Manager of Eneco presented the brand’s story and the challenges that are facing truly renewable companies when many companies in the energy value chain present themselves as renewable when in fact, a majority of them are renewable only as far as the marketing message goes.
To further the point, Regine explains how sustainability can become more than a hollow marketing message, by making sustainability a valuable brand asset.
Eneco’s approach has not only been to offer renewable energy and offer customers a choice but also to enable customers the possibility to monitor their energy usage and helping them to cut down usage without noticing it by offering software that monitors and detects usage.
The brand is truly one of the best energy brands in the world. Eneco was a runner up for the CHARGE Energy Branding Awards as the world’s best green energy brand. A global panel of experts created a shortlist of outstanding energy brands and Eneco was the only incumbent brand in their category — all of the other green brands had been established after their home markets had been liberalised. The panel, and more importantly, the customers of Eneco agreed that the brand has done an outstanding job in creating a credible green energy brand.
Regine’s presentation on Eneco’s case can be seen in the player below. I’m looking forward to seeing more quality speakers from around the world in Iceland in October.
