lnterview: Sacha Deshmukh,Chief executive, Smart Energy GB

“If there are delays, the key will be clarity of explanation and helping people to understand that the goal is still being delivered.”

Meet Gaz and Leccy, the troublesome but instantly likeable cute cartoon faces of the smart meter rollout. Making the introductions to Utility Week is Sacha Deshmukh, chief executive of Smart Energy GB, the body charged with raising consumer awareness of the troubled smart meter rollout from its current level of less than 25 per cent. It’s a job not many would envy – but today Deshmukh is all smiles and confidence.

That confidence is going to be needed, because the challenges facing the rollout are many and varied. With another delay to the official start just revealed, there are serious questions over the deliverability of the rollout and its value for money (some critics argue that key parts of the technology such as the in-home display units are already becoming outdated). Meanwhile, the public, still simmering with anger at energy suppliers, is largely uninformed about the rollout. It is anyone’s guess whether they’ll open their doors when the time comes. It’s such a mess that Deshmukh’s former chair Baroness McDonagh recently took to the pages of Utility Week to call for a new oversight role to be created. Weeks later, she left her post.

However, Deshmukh isn’t going anywhere. Having been with Smart Energy GB since day one (which was two years ago), he’s confident that the campaign is the right approach to get the public on board. He’s passionate about the creative approach, sanguine about the delays and naysayers, and ready for the rollout.

NB: Sacha Deshmukh will speak at Utility Week Congress 2015 whixch takes place in Birmingham, 14-15 October. Full programme details and booking can be found at: www.uw-congress.net

Deshmukh brims with enthusiasm. Spreading the campaign’s colourful creative across the coffee table, he explains that the cartoon characters are the result of a huge amount of work with consumers. “More work than I have ever done in my career in the development of a campaign,” he says, as a veteran senior partner and chief executive of campaigns for household names including Sky, Santander and BMW.

Deshmukh has managed to deliver the smart meter promotion campaign under budget. Roughly £4 million was spent on developing the consumer campaign in 2014, money provided by energy suppliers as part of their supply licence conditions. The company’s accounts reveal that there was a £167,000 surplus in 2014, partly due to planned expenditure being reduced to achieve value for money.

The choice of animated characters takes advantage of a “renaissance in animation”, Deshmukh says, while also ensuring longevity over the timeframe of rollout. Doing without live actors should also help to keep costs down. There is also a series of videos on the theme of estimation being released. The next one is rugby themed and it will make the most of the rise of digital channels. A partnership with Youtube means the videos will be promoted to UK rugby fans using the site for rugby highlights. This is “double the number using ITV for highlights,” says Deshmukh. The current Rugby World Cup would pretty much guarantee big viewing numbers. Later next year TV adverts will also be rolled out in the form of another visually pleasing video explaining how a smart meter is actually installed and works. It will be voiced by much-loved TV and film actor Jim Broadbent.

From here the campaign steps into the unknown. “There has never been a public engagement campaign on the subject of energy in Britain before,” he says.

Will it be enough to get a sceptical public onboard? Smart Energy GB’s own research released last month reveals that only 9 per cent of customers trust all energy suppliers. But Deshmukh reckons that once consumers see that this is a national, government-led campaign, they will put their mistrust of suppliers aside. He explains that coherence is critical to the message, with five suppliers already in conversation with the campaign as to how Gaz and Leccy will be incorporated into their own communications.

“A few of them are currently spec-ing up their vans. I think we know more about the sizes of Renault Vivaros in this office than you’d have ever thought,” Deshmukh laughs.

Third parties, contracted by suppliers to install meters, will also carry the national branding to help enforce the message. All in all, Deshmukh believes the outcome will be a public aware that each supplier is “just playing its part”.

But so far much of this is just theory. The campaign is yet to really get under way, and while independent evaluators Hall and Partners have reported that on every metric over the past six months “we are leaps and bounds ahead of pretty much every other type of marketing engagement”, the reality is that less than a quarter of the public understands what a smart meter is. The independent research shows that people likes Gaz and Leccy, but the two cartoon characters certainly have a job to do.

There are other challenges ahead too. The biggest ongoing concern is the constant threat of delay. Already the go-live date for the communications networks at the heart of the rollout has been pushed back twice, with the Data and Communications Company (DCC) due to report to the Department of Energy and Climate Change in a matter of weeks whether the current date of April 2016 is still achievable.

While the start date is moveable, the 2020 end-date is apparently set in stone. The industry is growing concerned that as the installation window tightens, the rollout deadline is becoming untenable. Already suppliers must install an eye-watering 900,000 meters a month during the mass rollout to stay on target.

Will further delays jeopardise public engagement? Deshmukh doesn’t think so. He says the consumer research undertaken by Smart Energy GB at the end of 2013 revealed a public sympathetic to the size and scale of the project, and more importantly prepared to make allowances for changes in timescale.

“The key will be clarity of explanation and helping people to understand that the goal is still being delivered. Every single member of the public we have spoken to has actually said this is of huge scale, and things do change, just be really clear and open with the public about what’s happening, because people will understand.”

The scale of the change really is unprecedented. Even the switchover to digital TV occurred after 40 per cent of the country had already made the switch voluntarily – and that still had problems aplenty.

As if that wasn’t complicated enough, the Competition and Markets Authority recently weighed into the debate, with a recommendation that smart meters should be rolled out to prepayment customers first. Deshmukh isn’t convinced. Like the DCC itself, he worries about using the most vulnerable customers as guinea pigs.

“No-one wants to see any smart meter go wrong, but if you are dependent on pay-as-you go there is double the reason to make sure nothing will go wrong.”

The CMA is now due to report in April 2016, so could an adoption of its prepayment recommendation at this late date derail the rollout? Deshmukh brushes away the suggestion “Our timings can be and will be very flexible. We would be able to run our campaigns efficiently and effectively whatever decision is made about prepayment.”

Deshmukh may be confident but his board of directors has already flagged up a change of timescale for the rollout as a particular risk to the campaign achieving its objectives. But Deshmukh remains firm. “If the secretary of state or any other decision-maker takes a view as to any pattern that should be in the rollout, we would make sure we would match it, and we are definitely able to do that.”

Smart Energy GB is just one cog, albeit a critical one, within the much larger machine that is the rollout. It can only push out its message and hope the other parties in the programme perform to time. With so much of the rollout still up in the air, does Deshmukh agree that the programme would benefit from one independent body in charge, as called for by the then chair of Smart Energy GB Baroness McDonagh, before her tenure came to an end earlier this year? The recruitment of McDonagh’s successor is ongoing.

For the first time Deshmukh’s exuberance dies down a little, leaning back in the chair to consider his answer. Unlike McDonagh, Deshmukh has faith in the status quo.

“I think that a programme of this complexity will always need really thorough oversight, and really excellent co-ordination to make sure that all of the different delivery partners work together efficiently. I think Amber Rudd has decided that that is the role Decc is very clearly going to play. She has put her personal commitment to leading the smart meter rollout very strongly since the first day she became secretary and I think that’s going to be very effective going forward.”

Are Deshmukh’s hands full with Gaz and Leccy? Apparently not. He has found time to simultaneously chair another vast campaign. Although born in London, his family are of refugee origin, so the cause of charity War Child is something close to Deshmukh’s heart. “I wanted to apply what I knew about cause related campaigning and engaging a very big audience in that.”

Deshmukh talks of the plight of the 25 million displaced children around the world with no less passion, but a slightly more serious air. Clearly he could fill a second hour, but time is up. With that, the huge grin is back and he’s off, leaving Utility Week with the feeling that whatever troubles may lie ahead, the man at Smart Energy GB’s helm has enough energy and spark to join his creations in a trio.