Do we know what customers think when they make an energy-buying decision? Do they always think? What connections do they make between their actions and other things they care about, such as saving money, improving the quality of life, and helping the environment? Do they care more about their lattes than their kilowatt-hours? In this opening session, we will demonstrate how specific marketing techniques are changing the way people and businesses think and act.

Bill LeBlanc, Senior Advisor, E Source

This keynote presentation highlights Richard Earle, author of The Art of Cause Marketing. Earle was an early pioneer in the field of behavior-change marketing, having been on the design team for the famous Keep America Beautiful campaign featuring the crying Indian. He has continued to blaze trails in the marketing field by working on campaigns for Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, and other major for-profit and non-profit brands. He will share his wisdom regarding what it takes to create a successful marketing strategy and how to avoid failures that have plagued many marketing efforts.

Richard Earle, Senior Associate, The Regis Group, Inc.

In this session, speakers will use the social marketing framework to describe a full spectrum of tools that can help start to move markets. The first key is to understand—really understand—market, personal, business, and political barriers; networks and communities that influence beliefs and behaviors; and loyalties and norms that drive decisions. Then a series of tools will be presented—tailored to the motivations of specific customer segments—that can be used to steadily change how customers act.

Patricia Thompson, Senior Consultant, Summit Blue Consulting
Maria Vargas, Brand Manager, Energy Star Programs, EPA

Companies that create strong brands go well beyond advertising campaigns—they actually create new services and marketing strategies with their customers, becoming partners to grow value. John Winsor has worked with some of the top companies in the world, and will share his experiences with companies such as Nike, Volkswagen, and Virgin Atlantic. Businesses need to listen to and learn from the key voices in their communities, using a variety of tools to create compelling stories. Winsor will also share how today's environmental movement is changing the way customers view their choices, and how this affects professionals in the energy field.

John Winsor, Vice President/Director, Cognitive and Cultural Radar, Crispin Porter + Bogusky; author of Beyond the Brand

Small actions can grow into bigger actions and even create huge market movements over time. The speakers will highlight two campaigns that focus on small changes to influence energy efficiency. Both have used extensive market research to establish the baseline barriers that their campaigns work to overcome. One campaign comes from a nonprofit organization that is working through multiple channels, including cities, provinces, and utilities, to spearhead community-based change for energy efficiency. The second comes from a utility company. That campaign involved listening to what customers think about energy and the environment and looking at why those who care about energy savings still don’t do anything about it. The results pushed the utility to create its award-winning Every Little Bit campaign.

Dana Anderson, Director, Service Development and Marketing, Avista Utilities
Bruce Folsom, Senior Manager, Demand-Side Management, Avista Utilities
Stuart Hickox, Executive Director, One Change/Project Porchlight

Everybody seems to be in love with renewable energy and efficiency. So why is there such a gap between attitude and action? Smart Power has developed an extensive campaign, based on solid research, to move renewables markets in the Northeast. Xcel Energy has worked hard to learn about its customers’ awareness, perceptions, and preferences about the environment. This has informed the utility’s Environmental Stewardship initiatives, which include Xcel’s overarching brand messaging and communications as well as its portfolio of renewable and efficiency programs.

Brian Keane, President, Smart Power
Fred Stoffel, Vice President, Marketing, Xcel Energy
Meredith Vaughn, EVP of Account Planning, PRACO

One of the fastest ways to implement change and move markets is with the help of highly influential people and groups. How can we get policy-makers to encourage and, more importantly, reward improved efficiency and increased renewables? In what ways do corporations alter their businesses to become greener and more profitable, and how do CEOs make these changes? How can we develop outreach and educational approaches to encourage these key decision-makers to move in new directions?

Ron Binz, Chairman, Colorado Public Utilities Commission
Panel discussion to follow.

Business and social communities have always existed, but they are changing at a pace that was unimaginable just ten years ago. We have learned that communities of all kinds greatly influence our decisions and inform our opinions about what is normative. These groups can be cities, neighborhoods, congregations, corporations, clubs, business associations, or schools. They can also be virtual communities around shared interests and values. This session will provide case studies that use innovative channels to tap into the community-based marketing process in cities, schools, and large companies.

Anthony Star, Director of Policy and Evaluation, Center for Neighborhood Technology
Bill Radulovich, Principal, Walnut Grove Elementary School
Nancy Adams, Marketing Product Development Specialist, BC Hydro Industrial Power Smart Programs
Paul Seo, Senior Program Manager, BC Hydro Commercial Power Smart Programs

Different groups of people have widely contrasting attitudes toward the environment, energy efficiency, renewables, their utility company, and the government. And people and businesses are motivated to act based upon varying messages, or “hot buttons.” They also have different barriers to adopting new energy choices. Presenters will provide insights and methods for developing market segmentation and target marketing approaches based upon customer attitudes. The techniques can provide a boost to market penetration and can lower the costs of customer acquisition. In addition, the session will highlight how specific market channels can provide better access to targeted markets, and how various media methods work to optimize marketing spending.

Carrie Hollenberg, Senior Consultant, SRI Consulting
Ruth Covich, Director, Mass Market and Conservation Awareness Conservation and Sector Development, Ontario Power Authority

This session will start by highlighting a statewide campaign that has been successful over time in reaching broad constituents. Market research was used to identify barriers, develop messages that motivate specific audiences, and perform pilot tests. We will also discuss innovative methods to track how change occurs in the marketplace, particularly through social media and social networking sites (such as MySpace and Facebook) and user-generated content sites (such as blogs, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Flickr). These channels are critical not just for accessing customers with our messages, but also for letting consumers tell us how they think and behave.

Christine Geltz, Principal, Geltz Communication
Miriam Weidner, Account Director, Collective Intellect

One of the biggest barriers to using advanced marketing techniques, especially education and social marketing approaches, is the perceived difficulty in measuring their impacts. Regulators and managers like to be certain that money spent will equal provable savings. But appropriate, targeted marketing that is based in sound market research can lower the overall costs of delivering efficiency and renewables, gain greater market penetration, and solidify marketplace changes. We’ll present specific approaches to measuring these impacts and demonstrate through case studies how evaluation is done inside and outside the energy industry.

Ryan Firestone, Consultant, Summit Blue Consulting
Karen Villeneuve, Director of the Residential Efficiency and Affordability Programs, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority

While there are many barriers to moving customers and businesses to adopt different behaviors when it comes to their energy habits, there are also internal barriers to adopting social marketing techniques within our own organizations. In this Roundtable discussion, the audience as well as a panel of speakers will discuss how they overcame hurdles within their own institutions, what types of arguments convinced their management or boards to accept advanced marketing approaches, and how to make energy efficiency and renewables a priority instead of an afterthought. The collection of ideas will be part of a road map that E Source and Summit Blue create as a result of this conference.

Moderated Discussion: Summit Blue Consulting and E Source.