Life Is On

Read the campaign story

Life Is On was already visible in Schneider Electric’s September 2014 digital work. BETC and BETC Digital introduced Raccoon Dance Party, a playful film in which a household comes alive through interactions with electrical products. The agency account also describes a redesigned digital experience. This early consumer-facing work precedes the company’s October 2015 announcement of a North American brand campaign.

The later release broadened the explanation around customers, connectivity, efficiency and sustainability, with films, advertising, email, events and web content. These are expressions of one continuing platform rather than separate entries. The records support chronology and creative intent. They do not establish that exposure to the campaign reduced energy use, improved reliability or delivered a measurable environmental benefit.

Editorial interpretation: the platform translates infrastructure into a consequence that people can picture. A switch, control system or energy-management service is often noticed only when it fails. Showing what continues to happen when it works makes the category more legible. The difficult part is keeping the brand’s enabling role precise enough that the story does not imply responsibility for every pleasant activity in a building.

Editorial interpretation: a broad corporate promise can serve households and industrial customers only if the evidence changes appropriately. A playful home scene may attract attention, while an engineering buyer needs specifications, implementation constraints and a credible operating example. The campaign architecture should connect those levels without forcing them into the same advertisement. The next step matters as much as the initial emotional framing. A useful review therefore follows the whole journey from first impression to technical enquiry, rather than approving the film in isolation from the information that follows it.

Identify the normally invisible contribution

Ask users what they take for granted until the system stops working. Choose one contribution that can be represented clearly without staging a dangerous failure. Then show the ordinary activity it supports. This gives technical teams a useful briefing method: begin with a recognisable situation, identify the enabling component and explain the relationship in language a non-specialist can repeat accurately.

Keep environmental language tied to a boundary

Efficiency is not a universal property of a brand. State which process, product, operating conditions and comparison support a claim. If the available evidence only shows a capability, describe the capability rather than forecast savings. This discipline is especially important when an emotionally broad platform reaches audiences who may mistake a general sustainability ambition for a verified result in their own setting.

Build different proof layers for different decisions

Separate the introductory story from the information needed to evaluate a purchase or implementation. A household user may need compatibility and installation guidance; a facilities team may need technical documentation and a scoped assessment. Keep the central proposition consistent while allowing the evidence to become more detailed. Useful segmentation is about the decision being made, not merely changing the headline for different job titles.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: show how one low-risk control feature supports an everyday task, then offer two evidence paths for ordinary users and technical evaluators.

Measure correct understanding of the enabling role, selection of the appropriate information path and remaining questions. Assess environmental claims separately from general liking of the creative.

Stop if viewers infer guaranteed savings, universal compatibility or safety improvements beyond the evidence. Do not substitute a sustainability slogan for a scoped technical claim.

• Use an approved demonstration setup and avoid unsafe electrical work or staged outages.
• Document the exact feature, compatible equipment and conditions shown in the film.
• Ask technical reviewers to check claims before testing comprehension with non-specialists.