23 July 2012
#50ShadesofGreen
Hats off to Npower. Its #50shadesofgreen hashtag took flight on Twitter last week, following a blog post about a naïve college graduate being bossed about by the über eco-conscious Mr Green, who makes her more energy efficient.
It was an unexpected take on Fifty Shades of Grey - the raunchy much-talked-about novel. Snippets from the would-be eco-version went down a treat:
"He takes my hand. 'Hold here and twist it' he growls. 'You see, it's not hard to put in an energy efficiency light bulb.' #50ShadesofGreen"
"'You've been a very bad girl', he growls. 'You've filled the kettle and you're only making one cup of tea' #50ShadesofGreen"
You get the picture. It wasn't long before everyone was joining in, retweeting and tweeting their own.
Certainly, it was a clever PR tactic. Adding a bit of humour or sex appeal to serious environmental issues like energy efficiency is a notoriously hard thing to do - we tried it ourselves with Chloe and Will's Hot Date.
But as green as Npower sounds, the fact is it's one of the Big Six energy companies keeping the UK hooked on dirty and increasingly costly power. A staggering 88% of its electricity is sourced from fossil fuels. A bit rich to come over all eco?
Friends of the Earth got in there straight away with a hashtag of our own - #getCBE for Clean British Energy:
"'Say it again', he said. 'Coal is not a shade of green', whimpered the woman from @npowerhq #50shadesofgreen #getCBE"
"He's soooo demanding - now he wants me to switch from @npowerhq to @Ecotricity or @Good_Energy to get clean energy! #50shadesofgreen #getCBE"
Soon there was praise for the we way turned it around: "Finding @wwwfoecouk's take on @npowerhq's #50shadesofgreen hilarious! Good effort =)". And the likes of "Oh @npower - you're so DIRTY! No but seriously: you really are, very very dirty. http://bit.ly/MdLJHL #50shadesofgreen"
We were retweeted by renewable energy firms and journalists and praised by PR firms - I think we hijacked the hashtag with style.
Marie Reynolds, Communications & Media team
© Friends of the Earth
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