SmartPower has set an ambitious goal to help build an Energy Smart America through the launch of our Energy Smart Cities 20X20X20 Campaign. The SmartPower Energy Smart Cities Campaign is a program designed to integrate clean energy and energy efficiency into a comprehensive effort that leads to 20% clean energy purchases, and a 20% reduction in energy use within a municipality, all by 2020. Our ultimate goal is to develop a replicable model that will be adopted by 1,000 cities across America, including 100 of the largest cities in America, by 2015.
 
The SmartPower Energy Smart Cities Campaign was officially launched this month with our first pilot market, Greater Hartford, Connecticut, and will be rolled out in three additional cities in the second half of 2009. 

“This is what SmartPower has been building up to for years—we’re ready to help bring America to that tipping point,” said SmartPower President, Brian F. Keane. The Energy Smart campaign will be built from SmartPower’s proven and innovative marketing tactics—including research based messaging, grassroots community organization, social networking and new media, stakeholder coalitions, and traditional radio and television advertising. Our launch in pilot cities is designed to create a set of proven resources and a tool kit that can be tailored to any city in America and that will achieve measureable results.

SmartPower is already marketing to high school and college students through our Let’s Get Energy Smart campaign—inspiring young adults with clear and informative messages about how and why to use less energy (see below).

At the same time, SmartPower is also returning to its place of origin, its first home—Connecticut— to plant the seeds of its 20X20X20 campaign.  Earlier this year SmartPower helped form the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Alliance, made up of stakeholders across Connecticut whose focus is reducing Connecticut’s energy use and promoting clean energy.  The organizations that have expressed interest in joining the Alliance include Clean Water Action, Applied Proactive Technologies, Climate Culture, the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, the Connecticut Development Authority, Connecticut Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Fund for the Environment, Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, Cool NRG, Earth Markets, Efficient Lighting and Maintenance, Environment Northeast, Environment Connecticut, New England Energy Management, Office of Consumer Counsel, and the Office of Policy and Management. SmartPower will be initiating market research in Hartford in late February with a series of focus groups to identify consumer barriers and campaign themes that will inspire homeowners to make better energy choices.

“Not only is SmartPower ready, but the pieces are in place for the first time in this country for a campaign such as this to flourish,” said Keane. “The need, the technology and a national culture all in place. It’s time for all of us to work to get America Energy Smart.”

There is, once again, a major energy movement building in Hartford. One of the original cities to commit to buying clean energy in SmartPower’s 20% by 2010 campaign, and one of the Connecticut Clean Energy Funds’ Clean Energy Communities, Hartford is the site of a new coalition of energy activists, businesses and community organizers and state agencies that have joined to create an energy efficiency campaign like no other. Many of these groups (see full listing of organizations above) have come together under the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Alliance, which was formed by SmartPower earlier this year, to help achieve campaign goals.
At the core of our initiative in Connecticut is SmartPower’s online partner, Climate Culture, who brings innovative technology and an on-line social engagement site that is entirely focused on engaging the community on being energy smart and reducing energy use. ClimateCulture.com provides SmartPower with the perfect site to send residents, teens, college students and activists to begin to make energy changes and aggregate results.
 
We have also joined up with Connecticut-based Earth Markets and international group CoolNRG who will be distributing millions of CFL bulbs in homes and businesses throughout the greater-Hartford area. These bulbs, once installed in homes, will generate immediate and significant savings in energy and money and raise awareness of our campaign goals.
 
“This has a lot of the fire-tested elements of our other campaigns, but is simply larger in scope,” said Brian Wright, SmartPower’s Director of Programs. “The city government and the community influence one another. We start by getting half a million CFLs out into homes around Hartford..  We also inspire hundreds of young people to commit to saving energy in real ways through Climate Culture. When the city government sees its constituents taking action to save energy and money, we’ll move them to follow suit with their own substantial energy efficiency measures. It’s all a very cyclical and exciting design.”

For the CFL effort, SmartPower will work with our partners to help raise awareness and build support for community engagement in the distribution millions of energy efficient light bulbs throughout the city and state. While the goal of 20X20X20 is to get municipal governments to purchase clean energy and make energy reductions, SmartPower has an equally important goal to greatly reduce the energy use of households as well.

The use of CFLs not only naturally reduces energy use, but CFLs themselves are seen as the “gateway drug” to energy efficiency.  Inertia keeps so many consumers from making the first move in energy efficiency and clean energy. The community-wide CFL distribution program has the potential for mass perception change about household energy use and creates powerful media opportunities to educate the public. Additionally, the high school students in homes throughout the city, and dorm room undergrads will all be taking action and influencing others to do the same by way of the information sharing happening on Climate Culture.

Combining our consumer marketing research, multiple marketing tactics and coalition building, along with unique online tools and the resources of our collaborating partners will be the playbook SmartPower will employ in Hartford and eventually roll out to additional cities throughout 2009.

High school and college students waste more energy then any other age group or demographic. Yet, as the activity and attitudes of the last presidential election helped illustrate, today’s generation of young Americans are also primed. They are not apathetic, and are ready and able to be motivated if there is something greater thatdrives them.

SmartPower’s Echo Boomer market research studies identified what young America will tell you—this generation does not want to be guilted into action. “Don’t tell me what to do, inspire me to do it,” was a finding from our On-Line Diary Research with this target group. Recognizingthat the most effective messages will come from young people themselves, rather than Madison Avenue, the Let’s Get Energy Smart campaign is designed for young Americans to speak and interact with one anotherthrough online social networking, contests and competitions about the simple things they can do every day to help reduce their carbon footprint—stop wasting energy! With iPods, Wiis, laptops, DVRs, not to mention stereos, televisions and everything else, there are more electronics plugged in the average high school student’s bedroom or college dorm room than what we used to have in our whole house. Our devices may be more efficient than ever, but we use more devices and energy than ever too.The phantom load from these electronics can cost more than $100 a year in wasted money and energy use. And when multiplied across America, that adds up to the equivalent of 17 coal-fired power plants.

SmartPower is hiring paid interns – SmartTerns – to use online social networks to get this message out and explain to their peers the different ways to save energy. SmartTerns are using Facebook, ClimateCulture, ThinkMTV, MySpace and a whole host of other social networking sites to spread the word and influence others to be Energy Smart. They will also be organizing Energy Smart programs and activities around their campuses and communities. They’ll facilitate or build on competitions to save energy among student groups, and they’ll spread the word about innovative contests like the Energy Smart $10,000 Ad Challenge.

Ultimately this peer-to-peer approach through online communication and community building, and the sharing of content through the use of our Ad Challenge, creates and delivers impactful messages that resonate with young people and put them on the food chain of sustainability. 

It’s an effective way of helping create a whole new generation of Energy Smart Americans.

In this economy, who couldn’t benefit from an extra ten grand, especially if it’s for making an ad that can inspire young people to save more energy?

As many of our readers of the Current know, SmartPower broke new ground in 2007 with our $10,000 Clean Energy Ad Challenge. The idea was simple, but major in its effect. We offered $10,000 to who ever could create the best 30-second ad to lead people to buy clean energy. The kicker was that contestants had to submit their ads on our SmartPower contest profile on YouTube.com for the whole world to see. (It’s a concept that more than a couple other groups and companies took notice of.  What can we say, we’re always happy to be trendsetters.)

Having hundreds of ads for clean energy on YouTube did a number of important things. One, it created a HUGE buzz and had thousands of people viewing and talking about what were the best messages for clean energy. Two, it showed us that there is a lot of talent off Madison Avenue. And three, that YouTube and similar sites are THE forum for video messaging in this era.

Now, SmartPower is doing it again. Only this time we want to tap the undiscovered message makers of America to create the best 30-second ad that will motivate young people to unplug their electronics, use power strips, and otherwise waste less energy. The Energy Smart Ad Challenge is a big part of our Let’s Get Energy Smart youth campaign, which, as President Obama would say is “one leg of the stool” to the grander Energy Smart campaign.

Let this mark the beginning of a much-needed marketing effort to lead America to its tipping point towards becoming Energy Smart.