ABEL and Harrison's Solar Used Pre-Testing to De-Risk Creativity

New Zealand energy brand Harrison’s Solar is taking a distinctly human approach to its brand building.

Facing the challenge of retaining its loyal customer base while energising a growing 35–55 demographic, the company teamed up with Aussie indie ABEL to deliver a new, long-term brand platform.

From the disruptive visual of sunbathing installers to the downplayed, character-driven humour that grounds it, the spot balances technical credibility with emotional resonance.

Made in collaboration with Design Dairy, plus photographer Troy Goodall and FINCH director Alex Roberts, ABEL creatives Simon Fowler and Phillip Robbie-Porter and Harrison’s CEO Matthew Ward told LBB they used pre-testing platform Ideally to de-risk creativity and validate bold ideas.

LBB> Is there a risk the tongue-in-cheek delivery could overpower or obscure the brand message?

Simon Fowler> We wrote a lot of different scripts. All of us are massive believers in and partners of Ideally, so we really didn't move forward creatively without testing a lot of the work platform.

It performed really, really well on distinctiveness, likability, and brand recognition. From a platform perspective, we feel really confident about that. The visual look of it is quite disruptive, obviously, with Harrison's people sunbathing on the panels themselves. We did a lot of scripts where we took it a lot further than where we landed and what we shot in the scripts that we executed.

There was a real power in the juxtaposition between the visual look and the more downplayed humour and dialogue. We also take into account the fact that we're launching this platform, which is a really long idea. This is just the beginning, so we didn't want to go abstract.

Matthew Ward> Can I add to that? From my perspective, that authenticity was really important, and as I keep saying to my guys, we've done a lot in terms of the rebrand of Harrison's Solar, but our brand is exemplified in how we should turn up and show up every day in people's homes.

It really had to be closely linked to who we are as a business, the way we do things, our culture, and our values. So when we were working through the characters, I can visualise those people in my business and their traits. There may be a little hyperbole for creative reasons, but it all links back to who we are, our values, and our personality as a business.

LBB> You mentioned there were some other ideas that didn't make the final spot, but this is the beginning of a platform. Are those ideas still in the back pocket for future spots?

Simon> We wrote scripts and went, “All right, that's probably year three”.

When we do this for any kind of business, we want a full brand identity refresh and bring to life the platform and the comms off the back of it.

We've got a lot of scripts that we can draw down from. I think you just have to revisit them in the next couple of years, be like, “Is this still funny? Does this still stand true?”

The other point of consideration too is at this stage we've only launched the first 30-second and 15-second cut-downs, and there are others launching over the next 12 months.

LBB> Are you able to talk a little more specifically about the insights themselves you took from Ideally, and how they influenced the choices that led to the work we’ve seen so far?

Matthew> The Harrison's brand has been around since the 1960s in New Zealand, and so we have extremely high brand awareness and preference.

High brand awareness and preference in the more mature markets, your 50+ demographic, and they've been a solid base for us for a number of years. But in New Zealand, with the growing level of home ownership in the 35-55 category, that's what we're labelling our growth segment.

A key thing for me using the Ideally testing was to ask, “Does this resonate with our growth segment, but is also not going to alienate our base?”

When we were testing the concepts, this was really important. When it did test strongly for distinctiveness, likeability, and brand association.

The insight ‘de-risked’ things from our perspective. It enabled us to be a bit more creative and not just play it too safe; we got license to do that by virtue of the testing.

Simon> Part of the testing for us, from a strategic and a creative perspective, was to ask how we can simplify this into a really emotionally compelling point-of-difference.

We talked to a lot of Harrison's Solar business owners in New Zealand as part of the research, and hearing from them, getting under the hood of the business and experiencing it firsthand.

It led us to the simple truth that people are what make Harrison’s different.

Phillip Robbie-Porter> Also, from a creative idea point of view, having a go through testing, not necessarily to research insights at that stage, but to validate what we think is the creative merit of the idea … [we had] responses come back where people were building on the idea themselves in the feedback: “It would be fun if you did X, Y, Z.”

We’re not crowdsourcing creative direction from customers, but just knowing the idea of the creative is compelling enough that someone would engage with it to build on and invent it -- that's when we thought, okay, we’ve got a long-term platform here.

LBB> This can feel like a crowded, confusing category at times, and lots of energy companies are trying hard to differentiate themselves. Is there a risk this kind of brand exercise could oversimplify the genuine technical aspect of your offering?

Matthew> Well, when our business owners are in the home, their job is to explain the system and the benefits in simple terms.

They just need to trust that we know that stuff. And then there's obviously those proof points … we're New Zealand's most trusted installer.

So no, I don't think there's a risk around oversimplifying. I think it's a good thing. And I think we can take some lessons from some other industries where there are financial benefits and other technical aspects that people don't burden consumers with, and they do it on purpose.

So for us, it was all about positioning ourselves as the experts.

Simon> From a creative and brand platform perspective, what ‘The Solar People’ [says] is: When you come to us, you get this really personal, human support.

Again, we've written versions of scripts where we can talk to technical stuff, [but] the power of this platform is that it lets us introduce ourselves first.