Bullfrog Energy has a fairly new and interesting ad campaign making the rounds. Called Pay More for Energy the green electricity provider is trying to convince people to pay more for the stuff that ensures your lights come on when you flick the switch. You can find out more about what they do on their About page.

I'm a sustainability nerd. I think Bullfrog Energy mostly does great work. By doing what they do they can show real life demand for renewable energy. Two Walmart stores in Alberta are powered by Bullfrog and all of Mac's Alberta locations use clean, green electricity. Every kilowatt hour that you get through Bullfrog means less kilowatt hours from coal which is a good thing.

However, the reality is that you get to pay more for this privilege. That's where the advertising campaign comes in. Bullfrog has appropriated the Mister Man and Little Miss books for the typography and look for the campaign and made www.paymoreforenergy.com a redirect to a Facebook page. I spoke with a couple of graphic designers to get their takes on this unique campaign.

I met with Nicole Braseth (the h is silent) at a lovely little coffee shop close to my house on a wonderful early Sunday afternoon. She's an art director at Idea Market and tweets under the handle at @nicolecreates. You should follow her.

When I brought up the similarity to the Mister Men books, she immediately recognized the connection. "You could probably put them side by side and have the frog be a cover illustration for one of those books," says Braseth. "That sends a message to me that they're targeting people in their 20s, early 30s maybe. Does the happy frog go with that demographic? I don't know. Unless they're trying use that illustration style to inspire some sort of nostalgia. I'm 28, I grew up with those books and so it didn't occur to until you mentioned it but spot on."

Braseth compared the art and the typography for the campaign with Bullfrog Power's logo and had some comment on the campaign's execution.

"The frog kind of sends a elementary, kindergarten school message. Their original logo is sophisticated, modern and very, very appropriate for what they're doing. How do you send the message that paying more is better and I don't know if the cartoony frog necessarily works."

For comparison here's the Bullfrog power logo.

Nicole didn't get past the landing page on the Facebook page given her distaste for Facebook's recent privacy measures and not know exactly what's going to happen when you press that Like button. This Facebook page is the only page associated with this Pay More For Energy campaign.

"I think that's a mistake given the privacy issues Facebook is having. I feel that a lot of people are not going to want to sign up. I'm not. Facebook already know everything going on in my life I don't need that info going out to third parties thank you very much," says Braseth.

I also spoke with Connor Turner of Armadillo Studios. Turner is a web designer who has recently relocated to the D.C. area from Calgary. He tweets under the handle @ArmadilloStudio. You should follow him as well. Since he's in DC we didn't do the whole face to face thing instead talking over Gchat.

Turner defintely sees this Facebook only style of campaign as a harbinger of things to come in the web design and advertising world. With Facebook's new Facebook markup language (FBML) allowing designers like him more flexibility in regards to designing these kinds of experiences. Turner had a great take on the fact that Bullfrog went with strictly a Facebook page instead of splitting it out a regular website. 

"By having a web site and a facebook page, you essentially make the Facebook page a novelty add on. By having it as the main source of a campaigon it drives people to be a part of it and accept it, to like it and to have Bullfrog's message streamed into their personal facebook stream. But, if it was just an option of a main web site, I think they would have a lot less people interested in their Facebook page."

Turner had warm words for the project in general calling the design "crisp" and contemporary" and was a big fan of the use of video.

I suppose I should sum up with my thoughts on the campaign but I'd love to know what you think about this campaign and about the points raised in this post.

Personally, I love the design. The nostalgia factor worked. Still, designing a campaign around shared childhood experiences is risky and it is a wee bit too cutesy-poo for something so dollars and cents. Bullfrog is running up against the vitamin problem as a business. Everyone knows they should take their vitamins but they rarely do. Everyone knows that they probably don't pay the full cost of power on their bill but what's forcing them to change? It's tough sledding and they've done a good job in the execution but ultimately renewable energy needs to be about market parity, pricing of externalities on traditional power generation and more efficient and cost effective technology, not paying more out of a sense of guilt. 

What do you think? Pass or Fail?