Nothing says conservation better than talking animals!

Context

Toronto Hydro promotes saveONenergy programs that offer residential customers incentives to conserve and reduce electricity.

Challenge

Craft and execute a campaign that increases participation in residential energy conservation programs.

Process

Toronto is a very crowded space when it comes to out of home marketing. Billboards are on every corner, and let’s face it, energy conservation isn’t very sexy. This campaign had a healthy budget and if positioned correctly had the potential to affect real change.

My answer? Puns! We often joked in the studio “how many different ways can we say save on energy?!” Well, it turns out, if you use puns and Toronto-centric wildlife there are a lot of ways to say “save on energy”.

I illustrated squirrels, raccoons, mice, blue jays and Canada geese and paired them with simple messages that effectively drove activity to the web. This award winning campaign was seen in outdoor, out-of-home, direct mail and online ads. Toronto Hydro ran this campaign through summer and fall and saw record levels of online sign-ups.