Ecobee and FCB/SIX: A New Partnership to Imagine the Future of Smart Homes

Ecobee's new agency of record? That's FCB/SIX. This collaboration marks a significant step for the smart home brand as it seeks to elevate its brand connection and simplify its product story through relevant and adaptable campaigns. The partnership aims to showcase ecobee's devices working seamlessly together, offering complete comfort and security for families.

The "Imagine What Home Could Be" Campaign

The core of this partnership is the new campaign platform anchored by the tagline “Imagine What Home Could Be”. This creative platform is designed to improve brand connection through relevance, and provide adaptability for future evolution.

• Customer-Centric Approach: FCB/SIX specializes in customer journey-led approaches, ensuring that the campaign accentuates ecobee’s emotive brand assets and drives customer connection through key moments.
• Improving Brand Connection: The campaign aims to connect with consumers on a more emotional level, highlighting the potential of smart home technology to improve their lives.
• Simplifying the Product Story: By focusing on relevance, the campaign will make it easier for consumers to understand the benefits of ecobee's products.
• Adaptability: The platform is designed to evolve with ecobee as it continues to innovate and expand its product line.

The Genesis of the Partnership

FCB/SIX secured the ecobee account after a formal review process in the fall of 2020. Since then, the two companies have been working together, along with partners Cossette Media and Search & Gather, to develop the new campaign platform. The "Imagine What Home Could Be" campaign represents the first major public launch resulting from this collaboration.

Ecobee's Vision and FCB/SIX's Role

Ecobee operates on the principle that human empathy and ingenuity can overcome any challenge, and that technology can improve the world. The partnership with FCB/SIX reflects this vision.

Kevin Banderk, CMO and CRO of ecobee, stated, “Through this campaign, we chose to see home not for what it is, but for what it could be -- free from friction and filled with magic. In FCB/SIX, we found a strategic creative partner who really understood our brand and helped us bring it to life in a fresh and relevant way while staying true to our vision.”

Priyanka Goswami, SVP, Head of Strategy at FCB/SIX, echoed this sentiment, saying, “It takes the right kind of energy and momentum to create a campaign like this. We couldn’t ask for better partners – imaginative, attentive, and kind. They gave us the space and respect to do things right and challenged us in constructive ways. Through lots of conversation and meticulous workshopping of the journey – dissecting every barrier, need, content and channel opportunity, we built a creative platform that successfully centered each piece of communication in the customer and unlocked tremendous potential in the brand.”

The Campaign's Creative Elements

The campaign emphasizes the unique aspects of ecobee's brand through various creative elements.

• Color Palette: A distinct color palette is used to ensure that the campaign is easily recognizable as ecobee.
• Squircle Shape: The recurring "squircle" shape, a rounded square, is incorporated as a visual identifier.
• "Be" Mnemonic Device: The mnemonic device helps to reinforce the brand name and its association with smart home solutions.

Colin Craig, FCB/SIX Executive Creative Director, explains, “Achieving strong attribution was a key opportunity that we wanted to embrace in the work. From the use of colour, to the recurring ‘squircle’ shape, to the ‘Be’ mnemonic device, it’s all put together to be distinctively and undeniably ecobee.”

Recognizing the Individualized Sentiment of "Home"

The campaign aims to capture the personal meaning of "home" for each individual.

Craig added, “Home means different things to different people, especially during the pandemic where it’s a place of work, school, entertainment and more. It is also tied to a bigger home – our planet. We wanted to capture this individualized sentiment of ‘home’ in the creative and communication at every stage in the journey."

Initial Campaign Launch and Market Focus

The digital campaign was first launched in Canada and the US in March 2021. Following this initial launch, the campaign focused on the Austin market, where digital components were supplemented with TV advertising and out-of-home advertising, such as mall kiosks and train wraps.

Continuing Commitment to Energy Efficiency and Sustainability

Ecobee's new agency of record? FCB/SIX will help the company continue to innovate with smart home solutions that solve everyday problems with comfort, security, and conservation in mind. The company is dedicated to energy efficiency. Ecobee is also committed to sustainability.

Credit: images.ctfassets.net

Ecobee consistently finds inventive ways to reduce carbon emissions, design products to stay in homes and out of landfills, and improve access to sustainable products for families across North America. To date, ecobee has helped customers save the equivalent of 28.8 TWh of energy, which is like taking all the homes in Los Angeles and Chicago off the grid for a year.