In an interesting approach from a power company, CLP Power has partnered up with Yahoo and its new eMagazine, Better Me, to aim their encouragement of a low-carbon lifestyle and better energy saving behaviour towards the younger generation.
“The concept of energy saving has always been stereotyped as something to be carried out by the older generation,” says Celine Ho, deputy director of marketing and customer services. “In the past we used traditional channels to deliver conservation tips. This year we would like to break this stereotype and try to reach the younger generation as well”.
This marks a first for CLP Power in co-creating content with a third party, but as Yahoo is a popular website in Hong Kong with a wide reach to the local population, the partnership with the technology company should give the power company increased scope in reaching and promoting their mission to younger local audiences.
“The editorial direction of the newly created eMagazine Better Me fits perfectly with the messages that CLP has always been promoting as well. Therefore, we chose to partner with Yahoo Better Me because we both would like to promote the same ideals to the public and hence create a win-win partnership” explained Ho.
The eMagazine is hosted on popular blogging website Tumblr, and Yahoo and CLP Power have also invited KOLs from the region, such as actress Cecilia So, singer-songwriter Phil Lam and blogger Ding Ding, to share their electricity-saving habits, as an attempt at revitialising the image of energy saving and getting young people into the spirit of saving, to prove to them that helping the environment can be ‘trendy and chic’.
Better Me features articles where Chinese celebrities, photographed in very clean and stylised surroundings following a blue and yellow colour scheme (CLP Power's logo colours), endorse good energy-saving habits, such as making use of dehumidifiers instead of having constant air-conditioning and avoiding standby power consumption by electronic devices. With their favourite celebrities as examples, the project reminds the youth that it’s not all about grand changes, but about making small improvements to daily habits.
In addition to the project, CLP Power is also continuing their annual flagship marketing campaign, the ‘Power Your Love’ programme, which encourages citizens to decrease their energy consumption, as the company will donate one unit of electricity to households in need for every unit of electricity saved, compared to the same period last year. The programme has seen the conservation of 9.5 million kWh (the equivalent to a full year of power consumption for 2,000 households) of energy since its launch last year.