Plugging into The National Grid with OVO Power Move

The cost-of-living crisis rapidly shifted consumer priorities away from the long-term and altruistic needs of sustainability and the environment to the immediate personal pressures of putting food on the table and heating the home. OVO’s Power Move product rewards eco-conscious homeowners when they use energy in times when the National Grid is fuelled by a higher proportion of renewable energy as opposed to fossil fuel. However, with little knowledge that these “greener moments” to use energy exist, we needed a disruptive idea to both inform and drive behaviour change.

Our idea was The Greener Grid, a dynamic out-of-home campaign that only activates when the grid is powered by renewable energy, both creating powerful live messaging opportunities for Power Move and reducing the carbon impact of our media activity. Our world-first innovation plugs into real-time data from the National Grid to activate digital advertising that only appears when the grid is running on renewable energy. Using Stagwell’s technology, STAGE, we built a custom algorithm to fuel programmatic buying and automatically bid when the grid is greener, updated every 30 minutes, with more spend made available when the grid is at its greenest. Delivering the message, “If you’re seeing this, it’s a greener time to use energy," the campaign features on more than 2,600 screens nationwide, from digital six-sheets to large formats across roadside, rail, and shopping centres, as part of OVO’s broader Power Move campaign to encourage the nation to shift energy use out of less environmentally friendly peak times.

The Greener Grid initiative has only just begun, with a broader channel rollout planned for 2024 due to its enormous success in delivering for the business and the planet. The campaign generated 16,928 sign-ups to OVO’s Power Move during the two-month campaign period, equating to 24% of the total 12-month sign-ups and a threefold increase in traffic to the product page during the campaign. Not only this, but 681,521 kWh of electricity was shifted, which is the equivalent of powering 252 houses for an entire year, and, to top it off, 58.1 metric tonnes of carbon were avoided.