E.ON - The Ad Break

When your product is something people rarely think about unless it stops working, getting their attention can be a challenge. In Sweden, energy company E.ON and BBDO Nordics chose to embrace that fact – by briefly making everyday media behave as if the power had gone out.

The campaign, called The Ad Break,highlights how dependent modern society is on reliable energy by visualizing how advertising could look if it’s removed. In a co-branded TV ad with food brand Zeta the film opens as a conventional ad, then suddenly cuts to black. For a few seconds, viewers are left wondering if something has happened to their TV – or to the electricity – before the line appears: “If energy stops, Sweden stalls.” 

“It’s easy to take energy for granted – until it’s gone. In this case, we had to flip our thinking, aiming to maximize every channel through minimal use”, adds Karl Arildsson, Creative Director at BBDO Nordics

The same disruption runs across other channels: radio spots drop into silence mid-message and print ads in leading Swedish newspapers are designed to look as if the press lost power, with unfinished layouts and “broken” front pages.

The campaign was developed by BBDO Nordics in collaboration with Mediaplus, and runs across TV, radio, print and digital out-of-home in Sweden.