Bring on the Things: British Gas Hits With New Characters

British Gas’ new ad, “Taking Care Of Things”, sees the brand become the latest business to build their new creative platform around a character Fluent Device. The ad introduces us to The Things, an ordinary British family of four who are busy moving into their new house. While the parents unpack, the kids settle down in front of the newly-installed TV. Dad tries to make a cup of tea and finds he’s made a rather obvious mistake. And it ends up with them all cosying up on the sofa in their new home, with British Gas taking care of the electricity and heating.

There’s only one unusual element to this family. They’re all large, blue, furry monsters.

British Gas has a tradition of using loveable and comical characters in its advertising, using them to turn a very functional, service-based product into something warm, entertaining and full of humanity. As well as the iconic animated animals of Creature Comforts, they’ve used talking flames and an animated penguin. So The Things, created by agency T&P, have big shoes to fill. But the brand has taken some strong creative decisions that make success a lot more likely.

The first is simply deciding to go with a set of brand characters in the first place. Character based Fluent Devices are effective because they’re a very visible form of creative consistency. As we explored in our recent Compound Creativity report, creative consistency turbo-charges effectiveness in the medium- to long-term for campaigns, creating lasting brand and business effects far in excess of what one-off ads can manage. Recurring characters build anticipation and recognition for a brand – viewers look forward to new ads, and successful campaigns can gradually build a brand world around the characters.

The second strong decision British Gas have made here is using a family. Not only does this connect with most of their actual customers, but it gives the ad a lot more scope for showing human connection and interaction. We know from Orlando Wood’s work that elements like dialogue, gestures, and non-verbal communication between characters are an essential part of showmanship, the way ads entertain and keep audience attention. Making The Things a family unlocks longer-term storytelling potential.

And finally, there are subtle branding touches in the creatures’ design. As well as being cute and huggable, The Things’ come in a shade of blue that matches the flame in the British Gas logo, a brand cue that will help link the new characters with the brand in memory.

So how do The Things perform on their first outing? They get a good 3.2-Star Rating on Test Your Ad; the first outings for new characters often land in this range. The metric to look out for though is Brand Fluency – the risk of introducing new assets is that viewers don’t always notice the brand itself, so Fluency can suffer. British Gas pass this test easily, with a Strong Brand Fluency rating well above the category average for Utilities. Even though they’re new to viewers, The Things are distinctive and easily linked to the brand. It’s a fine debut performance for some well-designed characters and a very good sign for Things to come.