The Campaign

Other sources of heat seem absurd when compared to Natural Gas. To dramatise the absurdity of using other heat sources, such as electric and solar over Natural Gas, we created a character who represented less controllable sources of hot water, cooking and heating. This was Scorchy – our well-meaning but hopeless pet dragon. Scorchy is constantly trying to help out around the house of an average Australian family – but he’s inefficient and also downright dangerous! As the anti-hero of this campaign Scorchy engages audiences with comedy to jolt them out of their indifference to the category.

Creative Execution

With a pre-winter launch we hit TV and cinemas simultaneously. A 60 second unbranded teaser film ran in cinema, supported by our 30 second brand execution. 30 and 15 second spots aired on TV targeting new connections with tailored executions for cooking, hot water and heating. An OOH campaign dominated the major Sydney railway station with a mix of static posters, animated cinemagraphs and floor decals. Bus wraps and bus sides were everywhere when the campaign hit the streets in the cold winter months. A mix of retail radio, letterbox drops in new connection suburbs, and animated OOH in key home-maker centres saw us use Scorchy to drive both enquiries and cash back offers. At a corporate level, Scorchy became integral to brand identity, featuring everywhere from the launch event, to email signatures, water bottles, fun-run singlets, van signage and more. Of course Scorchy ventured online with eye-catching display banners,

The ‘Instantly Better’ campaign has been Jemena’s best-performing campaign to date. Natural Gas brand awareness increased 20% during the campaign period. On YouTube our view completion rates were at 75% for both the 15 second and 30 second executions, and the longer 60 second spot held viewers’ attention at a rate almost double the standard for the category. This helped to drive a 40% increase in website visits, and a 94% uplift in cashback claims. After the first month in market we saw a 207% increase in new customer connections. That’s more Australian households choosing to connect to Natural Gas during the campaign period than ever before.

The 2017 ‘Instantly Better’ campaign for Jemena Natural Gas was a major repositioning for the utility brand. Across all touchpoints, this campaign centred on one main character – a pet dragon called Scorchy. Scorchy came to life across TV, cinema, online, radio, guerrilla marketing, DM, social media and corporate identity – breathing new life, and a good dose of comedy, into an entire category that most Australians never consider.

Our strategy was to give Australian energy consumers an emotional reason to switch to Natural Gas for their home heating, cooking and hot water needs. Through humour, we’ve elevated the role of Natural Gas from an every-day utility to an enabler of instant family connection. To speak to the instantly controllable nature of Natural Gas, the brief, and ultimately the brand line, was that Natural Gas is ‘Instantly Better’.