CHARACTERISKS

TitleCHARACTERISKS
BrandLUMO ENERGY
Product / ServiceLUMO ENERGY
CategoryA01. Corporate Identity Schemes
EntrantBMF Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company BMF Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Advertising Agency BMF Melbourne, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Rhys Thomas Bmf Melbourne Account Manager
John Linton Bmf Melbourne Account Director
Melanie O'rourke Bmf Melbourne Creative Services Director
Dutch Icon Dutch Icon Graphic Design
Shannon Riches Bmf Melbourne Graphic Design
David Klein Bmf Melbourne Executive Creative Director
Callum Fitzhardinge Bmf Melbourne Copywriter
Chris Andrews Bmf Melbourne Art Director

Brief Explanation

The challenges were huge. Most people don’t know of Lumo and energy is a dirty word in Australia; prices are rising and people are frustrated. It’s impossible to understand your rates let alone the hoopla that goes with it. That’s because nobody reads the fine print. We set about to change that. Asterisks are the opposite of what Lumo Energy is trying to achieve. They scream ‘terms and conditions’ and nobody likes terms and conditions. Since Lumo can’t avoid asterisks we found a way to make them more likeable, so people might actually read the boring stuff that comes after.

The Brief

Lumo Energy is an up and coming business in an energy sector dominated by a few key players. In order to differentiate Lumo from their larger, more corporate competition we devised a brand positioning unique in the market: Lumo Energy. More likeable than hateable. As this new brand was taking shape the brief from the client was to make Lumo Energy the most likeable energy company in Australia. We set out to prove that in everything they do.

How the final design was conceived

We built a suite of more likeable asterisks to use across all communications, like a Cocktail for Summer and Skier for Winter, as well tactical ones like a Ghost for Halloween. In developing these Characterisks we needed a simple, likeable graphic style that reflected the unique Lumo personality and also, more importantly, could be scaled down. They needed to be legible when reduced to asterisk size. We started with a Gingerbread Man because he bore the closest resemblance to a standard asterisk. Then we started introducing others such as a man dancing a jig and a juicy roast chicken.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

Unfortunately we’ll never know the exact results the Characterisks had on the business. But we do know that with Characterisks in market ‘Sales Per Day’ increased by an average of 21%. We’re sure they played a small part.