Brief
Certas Energy is the largest distributor of fuel and lubricants in the UK and the leader in the supply of heating fuels to ‘off-grid’ homes. As part of its energy transition strategy to become a more sustainable energy company, Certas required a new brand to realise its ambition of becoming a leader in low carbon and renewable energy supply to homes and small businesses.
Solution
With previous attempts to create a suitable brand name having proved unsuccessful, Certas Energy turned to Nucleus for a fast-track naming solution in March 2022. We implemented our agile approach, working on the naming and brand promise definition in tandem.
We identified a unique positioning for the new brand as the experts in the electrification of home energy, initially delivering air source heat pumps and EV charging to off-grid homes. This would be followed by solar panels, batteries and insulation products. As the goal of sustainable, net-zero home heating can only be achieved over time, we characterised the green proposition as a journey, defining the brand promise as ‘the evolution of energy’ and the brand name ‘Evolo’. The name passed our rigorous evaluation criteria and a trade mark application was submitted within 4 weeks of starting the project and achieved registration by August 2022.
Next, we brought the brand to life with an identity that expresses customer intimacy - the understanding of customer needs and wants. Certas knows its customers well and visits them regularly with kerosene deliveries, so is in a good position to introduce and demystify new home heating solutions - especially during an energy crisis.
For the visual identity we used a cursive lowercase ‘e’ to suggest the start of the journey and a distinctive bold, but softly rounded font to create a highly distinctive logotype, presented in distinctive primrose and teal colourways. To further distinguish Evolo we created a stylistic 2-D illustrative style that helps the brand feel even more approachable and enables information graphics and animation to explain the air source heat pump and EV charging stories. Nucleus scripted, storyboarded and produced the animations, which bring the propositions to life.
Results
The Evolo brand was previewed at a management event eight weeks after project initiation and was unanimously praised for both its name and brand identity. Evolo is being soft launched in early 2023 before a national a national roll-out in the second half of the year.
Angus Blundell, Certas Energy Marketing Director, commented “Nucleus exceeded our expectations in clearly understanding the green energy agenda and creating a great new brand name, promise and identity in double-quick time. We look forward to working with Peter, David and the team on the next stages of the project.”