Fortum Energy — from ‘boring energy’ to ‘active engagement’

One of the simplest ways to see or create new opportunities for your business is to ‘overlay’ the rules of another brand, business or category onto yours and explore how it changes the way you think and operate.

I came across a brilliant example of this recently. What happens when you ‘overlay’ the rules of the success of Nike+iPod running application or Gatorade onto a (boring) company/brand in the Utilities industry of Electricity in Scandanavia? You see an opportunity to engage your consumers in an entirely new way, beyond the monthly bill, and perhaps now see yourself at the intersection of Human Fitness and Energy Production. Watch the video below — it’s self explanatory and not surprising why it won a Gold Clio award in 2009. Well done AKQA and Fortum.

A good reminder that the best ideas don’t necessarily need to be invented — just look for ideas and opportunities that already exist, but that would be ‘new’ in a different context.