Today sees the launch of SSEPD's awareness-raising campaign, highlighting the help available to its 3.7 million customers throughout the winter.
The campaign, which is a first for the company, is hitting local radio and newspapers, as well as increasing SSEPD's existing presence on social media. For those of you who don't know, SSEPD is made up of two companies, Southern Electric Power Distribution which has 2.9m customers in central southern England, and Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution, which has around 750,000 customers in northern Scotland.
SSEPD is using real staff as the centrepiece to this campaign in recognition of their role as the backbone of the company - the men and women who go out in all weathers and battle the elements to repair faults, restore supplies and keep the lights on.
Depending on where you live, the stars of your local adverts will be either Archie Kennedy from Dunoon or Nigel Morrell from our Oxford depot, who'll be sharing some simple tips so that customers can be best prepared for bad weather, which can increase the risk of a powercut. The campaign will also be communicating directly with every single customer in their home via a leaflet explaining the role of SEPD and SHEPD, as well as laying out in a clear and simple way how customers can get in touch on the rare occasion there is a powercut.
If you already follow HydroPD or SouthernelecPD on Twitter, you'll know that when the weather is bad the social media team posts regular updates to keep customers informed about power cuts, as well as offering helpful tips and advice about what to do until the power is back on. This winter there will be much more content on the channels; with more news, videos and tweets about the work that is going on and how we can offer help and assistance to our customers.
As well as increasing the helpful information and updates, SSEPD's social media will also be running six specially commissioned video profiles of different staff from both distribution areas, who offer an insight into their working lives; these will also feature in digital advertising campaigns that will run over the winter.
Finally, if the weather really does turn nasty and causes the power to go off, SSEPD has been busy over the summer upgrading its award-winning PowerTrack app which lets customers get powercut updates on their Apple and Android smartphones and tablets.