Howm I Doing? Tracking the Effectiveness of Advertising an Energy-Efficiency Program

The statewide Wisconsin Focus on Energy initially included umbrella advertising intended to overcome barriers of customer awareness and motivation to participate in energy-efficiency activities. The goals were to increase public awareness of the program; stimulate interest in obtaining additional information about energy efficiency opportunities, benefits, and actions; and encourage willingness to participate in actions to increase energy efficiency. It was recognized that success in achieving these goals would require significant investment, as well as time to gain the attention of consumers, persuade them of the value of the program, and interest them in moving forward. To monitor the effectiveness of the umbrella advertising and obtain timely feedback, the sponsors and implementers established an evaluation process that would track selected metrics of customer awareness, program image, intent to seek additional information, and intent to engage in activities to increase energy-efficiency. The methods included a baseline telephone survey of 588 randomly chosen households and monthly tracking surveys of at least 150 households. The first portion of this paper describes the survey results, which show modest increases in awareness of the Focus program and ENERGY STAR, as well as in favorability toward Focus. The paper next discusses unplanned reductions in umbrella advertising that limited the opportunity to determine the effectiveness of the approach, the reasons for the changes, and some lessons learned. The final part of the paper provides an extended look at a study of differential advertising investments in supporting a specific component of Focus, the Change-A-Light campaign to increase sales of compact fluorescent lamps.