Online campaign aims to boost take-up of solar
Green marketing news – by GreenWise staff
16th October 2012
The solar industry is planning to launch a national online campaign to boost consumer confidence in solar power.
The ‘Please Your Plug’ campaign is being launched by Our Solar Future, the campaign first launched to fight cuts to solar subsidies. The latest campaign hopes to reverse flagging figures in solar take-up and is being backed by a number of leading solar companies, including Solarcentury, Southern Solar and Sun Gift Solar.
“The industry needs to get moving again, and we have brought together a group of companies who are keen to do something about it,” Howard Johns, managing director of Southern Solar and chairman of Our Solar Future said. “We really need a fresh take on communications for the industry to wake people up to the opportunity that still exists.”
Fall in solar installations
The ‘Please Your Plug’ campaign will target residential owners, commercial owners and investors, and by September 2013 hopes to have driven more than 250,000 visitors to a ‘one-stop-shop’ website setting out the benefit of investing in solar. It aims to create 80,000 potential sales leads for those solar companies that support it. Central to the campaign will be an entertaining video featuring a plug extension lead.
“As with Ecotricity’s video which attracted over one million views in a matter of weeks, we are hoping our campaign will have similar reach. All that’s needed is for 300 organisations to each contribute £500 to make a real difference to the future of the solar industry,” added Johns.
“It’s been a hard year for solar, but now it’s time to turn things around. There’s a time to complain and there’s a time to get down to growing the market we have by drawing on the positives of this fantastic industry. Good communications will make the difference,” said Charlotte Webster, head of PR firm CleanTech, CCgroug, which is handling communications for the campaign.
Those behind the social media campaign are describing it as the “most ambitious renewable energy campaign witnessed by the UK”. However, the campaign still needs to raise £150,000 and is seeking donations from hundreds of solar companies to ensure it can go live.
“The industry needs to get moving again, and we have brought together a group of companies who are keen to do something about it,” Howard Johns, managing director of Southern Solar and chairman of Our Solar Future said. “We really need a fresh take on communications for the industry to wake people up to the opportunity that still exists.”
Fall in solar installations
‘Please your Plug’ is being launched following deep cuts to the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) for solar electricity in the last year. Since August, when the latest cut to solar FiT rates took effect, solar PV installations under 50 kilowatt have fallen dramatically. For the four-week period between August 13th and September 9th, the latest period for which official figures are available, there were just over 3000 installations, a more than nine-fold decrease on the same period last year, when there were almost 13,000 installations.
The ‘Please Your Plug’ campaign will target residential owners, commercial owners and investors, and by September 2013 hopes to have driven more than 250,000 visitors to a ‘one-stop-shop’ website setting out the benefit of investing in solar. It aims to create 80,000 potential sales leads for those solar companies that support it. Central to the campaign will be an entertaining video featuring a plug extension lead.
“As with Ecotricity’s video which attracted over one million views in a matter of weeks, we are hoping our campaign will have similar reach. All that’s needed is for 300 organisations to each contribute £500 to make a real difference to the future of the solar industry,” added Johns.
“It’s been a hard year for solar, but now it’s time to turn things around. There’s a time to complain and there’s a time to get down to growing the market we have by drawing on the positives of this fantastic industry. Good communications will make the difference,” said Charlotte Webster, head of PR firm CleanTech, CCgroug, which is handling communications for the campaign.
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