British Gas launches Me brand, targeting young housesharers
British Gas has launched new mobile energy brand Me, with branding and app design by Rufus Leonard.
Me allows users to manage energy entirely through a smartphone app, and is designed to be an easier way for those in rented and shared accommodation to manage their energy and bills.
The app, which is currently in beta, allows people to split bills between housemates, manage moving house and taking their energy account with them and view how much their energy bill comes to, as well as how much the next one is expected to be.
Neil Svensen, Rufus Leonard chief executive, says, ‘We wanted to approach it in quite a different way. They knew they didn’t have much penetration in that segment, so we wanted to develop something that could be completely controlled by smartphone.’
The consultancy carried out a number of research sessions with the Me target audience, and developed an interface that was ‘as simple as we can get it’, according to Svensen.
Users can sign up to use me through the app, and can choose between the Online Variable or Clear and Simple tariffs.
The brand will have its own customer service team.
Rufus Leonard has previously worked on British Gas projects including an iPhone meter reading app, which allows customers to submit meter readings via smartphone.
The service will fully launch this September.
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Interesting how this new brand, which exists largely on a digital platform, bears little or no relation to the British Gas main visual brand identity.
Much like the BBC iPlayer, it seems to point to an utter lack of joined up thinking from the original VI, probably via a woefully bereft brand guideline document that was barely read, and certainly contained little to help UX design decisions.
iPlayer somewhat helped the ageing Auntie… both due to it’s successful adoption and use by the audience, and also in a almost stealth-like rebrand of the BBC online.
I wonder if BG will see an opportunity to push their visual brand identity further into this new direction, or hang on desperately to two visual identities only serving to further fragment their communications…