Project Overview

Northern Powergrid’s ‘Boston Spa Energy Efficiency Trial’ (BEET) is a £1.3m energy efficiency trial, currently taking place in and around Boston Spa and Wetherby, Yorkshire, to help households and businesses reduce their energy bills and carbon emissions. The BEET-Box harnesses data from smart meters to optimise network voltage, safely turning the voltage up and down as needed to help customers save energy.

The trial could help 15,000 households and businesses in the area cut their energy bills by an average of £20 annually and their carbon emissions by 27kg a year – the equivalent of driving 100km. Nationally, the technology could cut UK energy bills by up to £500m and save 200,000 to two million tonnes of CO2.

I worked with Greenhouse PR to produce the marketing material for the BEET campaign which included a leaflet, an animation, a social media post and the trial area map.

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Project Approach

The project team at Greenhouse provided a thorough briefing and a detailed package of information, prior to starting to work on the project:

• copy for the information leaflet
• a rough outline for the animation, including content guidance;
• a script for the animation

The client needed an A4 leaflet that could be distributed to households and businesses in the BEET trial area.

To begin with, I produced three different A3 spreads, for the client to choose from. We then moved forward with the preferred spread, testing cover designs and tweaking the contents and layout as required, before preparing the final design for the printers.

The animation process began with a detailed breakdown of all of the illustrations required for each scene, ensuring that the timing and voiceover aligned. I then worked through the list of illustrations, and animations.

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Project Results

The printed leaflet was distributed to households and businesses in the BEET trial area, and hosted on Northern Powergrid’s website.

The animation, suffered some delays at the start of the approval process, and, in the end, the voiceover was cancelled and some of the critical ‘explainer’ parts of the video removed. The video doesn’t flow quite as smoothly as it should have, but it has proved to be a helpful tool in explaining the BEET trial to local residents.

I also produced a gif for social media, and a map of the trial area for use on the back of the brochure and on the Northern Powergrid website.

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