#1038 2023 · Frank Energy · Retail electricity (New Zealand)

Frank Energy blind-tested identical electricity and advertised 'Probably Cheaper' so the customer's own doubt sold the switch

问题

Discount electricity buyers mistrusted a hard 'cheapest' claim as a trap; cost-of-living pain made NZers audit bills.

背景

Frank Energy (the renamed Energy Online) was an obscure discount electricity retailer in a category consumers deliberately avoid thinking about — research cited by the campaign puts the average person at six minutes a year spent on their utility. Rivals all sold the same physical product, since the electrons behind every meter are identical, and most incumbents advertised on warm 'part of the family' emotion rather than price. When the cost-of-living crisis pushed even wealthy Aucklanders with 7% mortgages to stare at their bills, there was sudden appetite for cheap power — but a flat 'we're cheapest' promise earns no trust in energy, where comparison is a pricing minefield and cut-rate providers are suspected of hidden hooks.

The obvious responses were all weak: scream a headline price claim and get dismissed as a trap; run 'your family deserves better' emotive ads and drown in the category's sameness; or promise 'guaranteed lowest' and fail the moment a rival undercuts you. Frank needed a way to let a wary public arrive at 'cheaper is just cheaper' on their own.

换别人会怎么做

The standard responses all fail in electricity: claim 'lowest price' and be dismissed as a trap in a comparison minefield; go emotional against incumbents' 'family' ads and disappear into category sameness; or promise a guarantee a rival can undercut tomorrow. None of them answers the real objection, that a cut-rate energy deal must be hiding something.

他们看到了什么

The discount provider's enemy is the buyer's reflex that cheaper must be worse. Frank made that reflex the medium: blind-test the one product with no quality gap, tie, and say 'probably cheaper' so buyers conclude the rest.

那一手

Frank built its pitch around lab 'experiments' — arrays of identical appliances run off 'expensive power' versus Frank's offering, doing everything from making toast to a back-shaving comparison — and let them all come out tied. The tagline stopped short of a promise: 'Same energy. Probably cheaper.' The mute, identical commodity was treated as if it could be blind-tasted, and the blank 'tied' result was left for the viewer to conclude what it meant.

为什么管用

The move relocates persuasion from claim to demonstration. A hard 'we're cheapest' invites scrutiny and counter-claims; a tied blind test lets the viewer rehearse the reasoning 'the electrons are identical regardless of provider, so cheaper is just cheaper' without Frank being the one asserting it — and a person believes a conclusion they generated more than one they were handed. The hedge 'probably' lowers the counter-punch surface, so rivals can neither call the promise a lie nor match a number. Every dollar of cost-of-living anxiety then amplifies the fit: the consumer is already motivated to want the conclusion, and the experiment hands them a legitimate way to reach it. Attention compounds because testing power against power looks absurd, which makes the deadpan 'same result' punchline memorable.

值了多少

Customers +7% year one, +17% next, churn cut to 16% (industry 20–30%). Took 2024 Effie Aotearoa Gold plus two YouTube NZ Marketing awards.

什么时候会失灵

The trick depends on a product whose quality really is identical across providers and on a buyer whose doubt is about value, not about safety or identity. It falls apart where the cheap option genuinely differs in quality, where buyers are deciding on features rather than price, or where scepticism is about whether the firm will exist next month to serve them — no tied experiment reassures a customer who fears the provider itself is a fly-by-night. And the effect decays in a boom: when nobody is anxious about the bill, owning 'boringly cheap' wins no attention.

后来呢

Frank kept the quirk as its identity — a green asterisk mascot jabbed at rival complexity, and 'Probably Cheaper' was reprised as the always-on brand platform, proving the humble-hedge position was repeatable rather than a one-off stunt.

资料来源

[1]Frank Energy launches new 'Same Energy, Probably Cheaper' campaign via Motion SicknessCampaign Brief Australia, 2023campaignbrief.com
[2]Frank Energy, Motion Sickness find success embracing 'boring'StopPress (New Zealand), 2024stoppress.co.nz
[3]Frank Energy & Motion Sickness find success by embracing 'boring'New Zealand Marketing magazine, 2025nzmarketingmag.co.nz

流传很广，但只有部分可考。按传闻收录。