Down a Degree

In autumn 2022, we launched a large-scale energy-saving campaign together with Motiva, the Energy Authority, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, the Ministry of the Environment, the Prime Minister’s Office and Sitra. The campaign aimed to encourage citizens to take effective energy-saving measures and help reduce peaks in energy consumption.

Our isnight

Finns are resilient and well accustomed to enduring the cold coming from the east. The campaign emphasised that together, we could overcome this challenge too. We created a unified communications and marketing concept centred around the message and campaign identity Down a degree. The main message was “Down a degree. So there’s enough energy for everyone.”

Our solution

The campaign’s functional objective was to encourage 95% of Finns and people living in Finland to take at least one action to save energy. At the heart of the campaign was an engaging, meaningful concept story and the key elements of the visual identity.

The campaign’s most important task was to make people believe in the impact of their own actions and provide easy ways for everyone to contribute. The focus was on simple, rational and everyday actions, such as turning the room temperature down by one degree, taking a slightly shorter shower and choosing a better time to use energy.

The issue was serious, but rather than scare Finns further, we wanted to encourage them with a light touch and a twinkle in our eye.

To maximise the campaign’s impact, we also wanted to build a strong sense of collective action. We invited organisations, communities and companies to join the effort and consider what they could do in their own everyday operations. To make it easy for everyone to participate while maintaining a consistent campaign identity, we created a freely available toolkit of campaign materials.

Our impact

The spirit of collective action spread quickly among Finns. According to research conducted with Bilendi, almost everyone who had seen the campaign had saved energy in some way. The large number of people taking action was also reflected in traffic to the campaign website and lively discussions on social media. “Down a degree” also attracted international attention, with the Finnish campaign being featured in The New York Times.

The results speak for themselves: 95 per cent of those who saw the campaign took at least one of the suggested energy-saving actions. The campaign generated 564 media mentions in Finland and internationally, while paid social media reached a total of 2,126,947 people. The campaign website attracted 53,871 visits between 4 October and 31 December 2022. At its peak, the topic generated 345 tweets in a single day, and 1,699 Instagram posts using #AstettaAlemmas were published between 10 October 2022 and 18 January 2023.

What we did

Communication strategy
Photo shoot planning
Social media advertising
Out-of-Home advertising
Television advertising
Radio advertising
Influencer marketing