Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | APRIL 2021 | 23 Customers retailers; how to stand out from the crowd. Findlay-Wilson believes one way of address- ing this problem is a consistent approach to a brand's personality. She cites Octopus Energy's "fun" brand persona as a way it dif- ferentiates itself from the rest, something not all brands can achieve. "Octopus does some things very neatly, it has quite a clear personality that's slightly more fun," she says. "When it comes to the whole green energy agenda, companies that currently sell on that are going to be up against everyone else moving in the same direction. Di• erentiating and standing out is going to be important; that's where these other values are going to come in. I think therefore having a very clear personality and being true to it is so important." However, she warns, consistency is another key factor and brands should not put on a more fun persona just because it suits them on a particular day. There is also value in being a larger brand with a lot of heritage, because customers have di• erent expectations of a former big six player than a newer entrant. "I don't think Eon can suddenly decide it's going to be playful and jaunty. Octopus could do it because it was a new market entrant at the time. It has taken quite an entrepreneurial approach, wanting to be di• erent and carve out a niche. I think it's harder for the bigger players; they can't sud- denly be all fun and zany, because that's not really what they are about and it's just not going to be genuine." Findlay-Wilson recognises that an older, larger brand, such as 200-year-old British Gas, comes with a lot of heritage which it cannot turn its back on, adding that its cus- tomers might not necessarily be looking for a quirky and "fun" retailer. Sharing similar thoughts is Charmaine Coutinho, head of consultancy at Delta-EE, who also sees value in being a brand with a lot of heritage. She believes more nimble disruptor brands will have an advantage in that their marketing strategies can be made easier and cheaper with the use of websites and apps rather than television and newspaper adverts. However, she adds: "The older brands have a lot of good will in the fact that every- one knows who they are. "I think there is still a lot of brand value in that which is quite hard to translate and bring up to date but still it's a decent size of the population. How that looks in ten years' time might be a bit di• erent." Adam John, reporter From the report Brand Love, by Energy PR THE LOWDOWN ON BRANDING HOW MANY MORE CHANCES TO YOU THINK PEOPLE WILL GIVE TO A BRAND THEY THINK IS GREAT/LOVE? OUR MARKETERS WERE ASKED TO NAME A BRAND THEY FELT 100% COMMITTED TO (ONLY BRANDS NOMINATED MORE THAN ONCE ARE INCLUDED) 6 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 4% 17% 29% 22% 17% 7% 4% 0 1 2 3 4 5 More than 5

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