In alignment with their mandate of keeping the lights on, Eskom is committed to creating awareness around energy efficiency. Campaigns such as 49M attest to this. 49M is an initiative endorsed by government and business partners aimed at getting South Africans to embrace energy saving as a national culture to create a more sustainable future.

The Eskom eta Awards are a significant part of Eskom’s commitment to energy efficiency. These prestigious awards were established in 1985 with the aim of creating awareness and encouraging action in the energy efficiency field. Over the years, the awards have grown in size and stature and are now considered the Oscars of the energy efficiency awards in South Africa.

An important category of the awards is the Energy Efficiency Awareness category. It is here that Eskom recognises and rewards campaigns – or individuals – who have been instrumental in spreading the word about the importance of saving energy.

In 2011, Creatrix, a Johannesburg-based radio and entertainment specialist, entered their creative and highly-targeted radio drama, “Viva Street”, into the eta Awards in the Energy Efficiency Awareness category. This imaginative radio programme was created in order to teach the Ivory Park beneficiaries of Eskom’s Viva Free Hot Water programme all about solar energy.

In implementing this campaign, Creatrix faced a number of challenges. They had to reach a very specific target audience and educate them on a topic about which the community had very little understanding or awareness. In addition, they had to address a number of sensitive social and cultural issues in a manner that was both friendly and not at all condescending.

In order to reach such a highly-targeted audience, Creatrix made use of community radio – an excellent medium for this type of campaign, which proved highly effective. They cleverly tackled the difficult subject matter through storytelling, and succeeded in creating a conceptually-unique and impactful radio campaign that spoke directly to the desired target audience in their language and on their own turf.

Lynn Joffe of Creatrix is an enthusiastic proponent of this first-of-its-kind campaign.

“‘Viva Street’ succeeded in entertaining, educating and explaining the criteria for and benefits of solar water by ‘mirroring’ the psychographic qualities of the characters in the program with those of the community, creating credibility and empathy,” she says. “The interaction between the activities in the community and the radio program created a synergy between ‘on the ground’ and ‘in the air’ activities, allowing the medium of radio to ‘narrowcast’ to a specific community – which allowed for reciprocal access and communication.”

The “Viva Street” radio campaign aired weekly for six weeks on Voice of Thembisa to a listenership of 80 000 in the exact community in which Eskom’s Vive Free Hot Water programme was being carried out. The five minute-long dramas were broadcast in English on Wednesdays and in isiZulu on Saturdays.

Post-production research – including feedback from the radio station and presenters, as well as comments from community members who called in to the radio programme and entered the SMS competition – showed the campaign to be very successful in reaching the target market and communicating the message.

The eta Awards judges were suitably impressed with the creative and innovative way that Creatrix tackled this campaign. The way in which the programme effectively demystified energy savings was particularly noted. It was suggested that this type of programme calls out for application on a wider scale.

The “Viva Street” campaign was awarded with a Special Mention in the eta Awards.

The judges’ predictions proved true, however, as Joffe attended the fifth international Education Entertainment (EE5) conference in New Delhi in November 2011, where she presented the groundbreaking Creatrix radio campaign.

eta Awards organisers look forward to the 2012 awards, which Creatrix will be entering in the same category.

Entries to the 2012 eta Awards opened on 2 April and close on 3 August 2012.

For more information, visit www.eta.co.za