CCO: Susie Jaramillo
CD/Copy: Laly Boiso
AD: Harry García
The Challenge
Con-Ed wanted to rail new Yorkers to help reduce energy consumption and at the same time engage them to help maintain the electric grid by reporting outages. A task that was very hard to accomplish given the skeptic nature of New Yorkers.
The Background
Con-Ed’s image was very tarnished in New York City, specially in the outer boroughs, since the company struggled to restore power there after the last blackout. The perception was that the company didn’t care about anything beyond Manhattan.
But, on the other side of the East river, Con-Ed didn’t fare much better with Manhattanites, since they thought Con-Ed’s main goal was to raise their bills.
We needed to create a concept that communicated the total commitment of Con-Ed with ALL New Yorkers, reinforcing their current brand statement of “being 99% reliable is not enough.”
How we did it
We wanted to let New Yorkers know that virtually everything that makes the city famous depends on energy. But also wanted to convey that Con-Ed is well aware that New York is comprised of 5 boroughs and each one of them matters the same for the company.
The concept was simple: Everything matters to Con-Edison.
The execution? An image mismatch that showed how big, powerful, and historically reliable Con-Ed cares about everything as everything, big and small, depends on them. And how going beyond that 99.9% reliability matters. A lot.
Inspiring all New Yorkers who care about the city to help maintain this reliability by reporting outages.
Results
This simple idea, created with my partner art director Harry Garcia, helped The Gate New York win Con Ed’s multi-million pitch.