It is not very lucrative for companies to break into saturated markets and for sure not when we are talking about Germany’s energy market being free since 1998. Nevertheless dutch company Nuon started in January 2006 to promise “lekker Strom” (and goede, nieuwe, raadzaam, betaalbaar Strom) while trying to lure customers with aggressive marketing and a cheaper-than-cheap price.
This sounds good at first but only new customers get savings of 8 to 20 %, if they bind themselves for one year. The rest only saves 10 EUR / year and for most people I know this won’t be worth the effort to switch provider.
Nuon. Energy with ideas – “Tasty energy” – Agency: Publicis Berlin
When I first saw the banner on the street I felt like in the Netherlands, then thought: this company must be desperate when they’re using Dutch language in a German-speaking country.
A couple of other bad points:
- Germans don’t understand dutch, except maybe “lekker” or “goede” (as in “lecker” or “gut”)
- Germans don’t like Dutch people that much, and vice-versa (history once again)
- There are already tons of other energy companies trying to lure customers.
- Another yellow-branded, moderately successful energy company: Yello Strom
These kind of ads surely grabbed some attention from me but will they be successful among “normal” consumers? I guess they would just not understand the message, leave and forget about it.
Germans don’t understand dutch, except maybe “lekker(lecker=tasty)” or “goede(gut=good)” or “nieuwe(neu=new)” or “raadzaam(ratsam=advisable)” or betaalbaar(bezahlbar=payable) Strom… hm, am i right or is every word understandable for an average german person?… the nuon ads are cool and work, definetly. and, ps: i like dutch people.
Ik denk laut im Namen des Volkes: Konkurrenz belebt toch das Geschäft! Warom soll man die alteingesessenen MonopolAnbieter schützen, wenn sie unnötig teuer sind? Besser die sichere Nederlande als der unsichere Ostblock als Nachbarn, F. oder?