In France there are two main trends in terms of brand content: Brand content for entertainment and brand content as utility.

When creating brand entertainment, French brands tend to have a bias towards working with their brand “universes” (rather than their products or services), addressing a community that are mainly fans (rather than just consumers). These campaigns are based on affinity, but consequently are not usually very visible. In other words, in order to become viral, the brands take a step back in visibility so as to offer entertainment with viral potential.

When they provide useful content, it’s different. They highlight their expertise, their solutions, their partners and frequently appeal to the logic of media partners in order to find receptive audiences.

Both entertaining and useful, the Electric series is unprecedented in France:

- It extends an existing entertainment format – the popular TV series Platane;

- It leverages a celebrity without relying on them as a brand ambassador;

- It integrates the brand and its services into a continuous narrative;

- It doesn't just address the fans of the brand, but creates a new audience around unexpected stories from EDF;

- It targets an audience that is as large as possible, as most French are EDF clients.

The concept of the Electric series was a challenge in itself. We had to extend a series into a successful advertising campaign and convince Eric Judor to write the spin-off of Platane with us for EDF.

Here is how we set about the challenge of Electric:

? A narration and direction of a TV series. In order to guarantee the link with Platane, Eric Judor retained responsibility for writing and directing: The challenge for him was to adapt the format to advertising where everything is done in seconds rather than minutes.

? The branding: The choice of “Electric” was a natural one, for the link to the brand and to seal the place of Eric in the project. That’s why the Electric logo can also be read ElectRIC, a double reading made possible by the choice of a luminous logo. And finally the series poster which provides a little intrigue about the story, a direct relationship with an immediate benefit, between a client and the EDF counsellor.

? A narrative in episode format, with one EDF service per film starring the same characters throughout the series.

? Bonus content that is progressively rolled out through the season on electric.edf.fr:

? Informative content (character information, plot summaries, shooting maps…)

? Exclusive content, with bonus or deleted scenes.

? Tumblr content (Animated gifs, film loops, vines, etc)

? And digital activation in order to stimulate even more surprise and engagement.

? A media strategy that establishes a weekly TV date for viewers.

? A partnership with Allociné in order to reference and highlight the series in amongst all the other TV blockbusters.

? A long-term presence with the creation and broadcast of 14 episodes, rolled out over a communications period of two years: 2014 and 2015. Electric has only just begun!

To make each episode an event we organised not just one launch, but many launches.

We accelerated the shooting schedule so that it could be integrated into the Football WorldCup.

Each week, an average of 16 million French in front of their TVs discovered the first episodes in an event format.

We broadcast the episodes on Twitter using tactical targeting (#FRAUK for France-Ukraine, #BREMEX for Brazil-Mexico…), to gain maximum benefit from the online conversations.

We also “unlocked” bonus content on edf website: deleted scenes, failed improvisations... It generated new audience: web users come to the website for other reasons.

The series was an unprecedented success for EDF, with 88% approval by French viewers, regardless of age. And we even achieved this level of score with regard to the services proposed, with 80% of French having remembered seeing new information that they found interesting and 75% expressing eagerness for the next chapter.

Which is great news considering that there are 6 new episodes to come in 2015.

Traffic to the dedicated mini-site electric.edf.fr, also indicated a keen interest for Electric, with a record number of visits and time spent on the site. Since the launch the site has scored nearly 5 million unique visitors, with an average time spent on the site of at least 2’23 minutes and 9 million total page views. And this is without even counting the 26 million views on the web for the first 8 episodes that were already broadcast.

Today, people consume electricity but not the EDF brand.

Worse still, when they think about their supplier, it’s only when they have to : paying their bills, taking a meter reading, moving house and their energy contract.

So in order to encourage interaction with the brand that is more frequent and more positive, we had to do more than just a campaign about electricity or just a one-shot media campaign.

We chose to present EDF in a way that had never seen before: EDF, a service provider that helps you manage your daily electricity needs more effectively.

And as we sought to integrate the brand into everyday life and to be closer to people, we chose a familiar format that everyone knows: The TV series.

With Eric Judor, a famous comedian and actor in France, we extended the TV series Platane (A kind of French “Curb Your Enthusiasm”) by 14 new episodes plus additional content for EDF.

Electric: the first advertising TV spin-off in France of a successful series, Platane.