Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to the EU Energy Projects Podcast, a podcast series from Enlida and France focusing on the clean energy transition for the European Union and the EU Commission funded energy projects that will help us achieve it. My name is Aretid Daradimu. I. I am the editor of the EU Energy Projects Podcast and your host.
In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Friedrich Larsson, Europe's leading expert in branding. With his deep knowledge in brand positioning and stakeholder engagement, Friedrich has helped organizations bridge the gap between innovation and public perception.
We'll discuss how branding can play a pivotal role in extending the life of EU funded energy projects, ensuring their results, tools and innovations don't fade away. Once the funding cycle ends, we'll explore how branding can transform a technical project into a recognizable, lasting identity that continues to create value, attract stakeholders and influence policy and industry long after official funding has stopped.
Friedrich, thank you very much for joining me in this episode today.
And I would like to start by asking you, you've written extensively about branding. First of all, what makes branding in the energy sector different from other industries?
[00:01:44] Speaker B: That's a good starting question. Branding is just branding. It's similar principles. Whether you're human, selling shoes or electrons, same principles. But what makes it different for energy is the clients are thinking differently of energy. It's very much tied sometimes to politics or human rights. Just like the air you breathe, you want your electricity flowing. So that's not the case with many others. And it's also very demanding on the environment and the way it's produced. So you need to be more mindful of its origin when you brand it to the final consumer. But I stress it again, the branding principles are the same. You have to understand your target group. You have to come up with a proposition that they like and understand.
You have to deliver your product in a good way and you have to have a meaningful conversation with your with your clients or stakeholders.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: However, many, if not most EU energy projects are highly technical. How do you define brand in a way that makes sense for research and innovation projects? So how do you brand a project that is very, very technical?
[00:02:55] Speaker B: That's a great question. One of my favorite taglines is simplify to amplify.
So we think that if we explain more, people will understand more. That's not the case. The less we say in a structured sentence, the more people understand. And there's a famous letter that is, I think it's Mark Twain was writing a letter and he started off, apologies for writing a long answer. I didn't have time to write a short One, because it takes time to do something so structured that everybody understands it. But if you're in branding and talking about your reflecting on a question about tech, I mean, a task is important, but people don't really understand it most of the time unless a very, very narrow group of people that need to understand it. But the stakeholders don't. They don't care, actually, they don't care about the tech stack, they only care about the benefit. So you have to understand how can I simplify everything that I'm doing into easily ensure digestible taglines and add it into a custom that you are and stakeholders will understand. This is very hard to do. I mean, you want to explain everything, but you just can't. You only have few seconds in people's minds and make those seconds count. That's why branding is so important.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: Exactly. And it's not only the stakeholders, it's also the audience. I mean, it needs to become a household, let's say name, of course, not that much for EU projects. I understand that. However, still, the European Commission emphasizes dissemination and communication. It is important for projects and their branding can play a role.
How does it go beyond these requirements, let's say?
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I think maybe it's helpful to just understand we throw words around like branding and the brand. Not everybody understands that. In the same way a brand and branding is the exercise of creating a meaningful value proposition around your idea.
And we can also call it reputation, we can call it communication, we can call it marketing. But irregardless of what we call it, it's so important for everyone engaged in, whether it's an EU project or just again, selling shoes, to make sure that he or she is understood in a very, very meaningful way.
I may be going off on a tangent on the question, but having the ability to have meaningful communications and you do that the best way through a strong brand.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Exactly. And you know, I was thinking of asking you from your perspective, if the EU Commission provides enough guidance on branding. And then I thought to myself, no, it does not. But I would like then to ask you if it should become a more formalized part of project evaluation, if there should be KPIs for projects on branding as they are in dissemination, in other dissemination communication activities.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean the law of would have and should have or should or would. Should it? Yes, because it will force those who are engaged in those projects to actually think about the brand. Normally they don't. I mean, honestly, they don't.
All the empirical research that has been done on startups and those who Apply for funding. One of the key components of success is to understand branding and get engaged in branding. But still people don't.
They look at it as a side note, doesn't really matter just as a cost, but they don't view it as an investment that will actually help them to create revenue further on and in a meaningful way engage with a lot of stakeholders, not just end clients, but also a lot of stakeholders that you have to understand when funding ends. And maybe you have to talk to private investors, angels or VCs, then the brand becomes super important. They want to see that you understand the concept of brands because at the end of the day, you have to reach out to your stakeholders. If you're just so technical that you don't have any idea how to talk to them, you will lose their faith.
For that purpose, you need to do it.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: And Friedrich, if we take it a step further and see also EU Commission's priorities like the green deal or the power eu, how can they benefit from branding? And how can branding help align a project's results with broader EU priorities in general?
[00:07:23] Speaker B: That's a typical one for me to answer. It's very specific. So I always go back to the general ideas behind what branding is basically so, and I apologize if I'm just saying the same thing so for and over, but it's. I don't know, I don't know how to tie it exactly to, you know, you know, green Deal or you know, what you mentioned, but it's just, it's just the idea of integrating communications into what you're doing. And we've known each other for, for 10 years now, so. And I brought this idea to the energy space that used to actually engage in branding and people didn't really understand it and most people today don't understand it. And I've entered like boardrooms where people look at me and say, okay, what is this? What does this guy want? He doesn't even, he's not even an engineer. He doesn't understand anything because. And that's fine, that's totally fine with me. Because they are used to a different kind of thinking and they were educated to think differently, like from an engineering perspective. Social science is what I do. That's a totally different mindset. And the world does not operate to optimum in silos. So my task is to understand how can I bring those two philosophies together to maximize impact and that applies to whatever grants or ever companies or ever investment.
You have to understand how can I integrate the social science thinking into What I'm doing, and that's a big part of it.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Exactly. And in general, I would say that the European Commission needs a little bit of branding, needs a little bit of marketing, even in general, because many of the good things that they're doing, and believe me, I'm in a position to know that the European Commission is doing a lot of things to help our lives, to help make our lives easier in Europe, are not known to the public.
Maybe a good branding would help. As you said, we've known each other for a long time, and I'm not afraid to admit that, yes, I was one of the people 10 years ago that was like, what is this gentleman talking about? I don't get it. And the more time passes, the more I understand how important that is. So let's get a little bit down to business now. Many of the projects the EU funded, projects from various programs end up with very valuable tools, platforms or networks that fade away, unfortunately, after funding. How can branding help them achieve a second life? Let's call it this way.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: Yeah, no, excellent question. I think maybe before I answer, how branding can give them a second life. So I think I want to go back to what branding is that word in the entity space, our space here. Then sometimes for some companies, I can't use the word branding. I have to say reputation or something else because it's, it's considered a bad word because it's a. It's a. It's associated with waste, like a gold padding or like a wasteful exercise because it's just throwing away money on something that doesn't really matter or, you know, nice colors or cosmetics or whatever. So it's really interesting that that word, which I like, I mean, I devoted my career, you know, in understanding brand and help people to be, you know, know, branded companies or organizations is disliked for many. So, but going back to the second life part, but if you do embrace what branding can do for you and you accept the literature that actually shows you that you will be more profitable down the line. If you engage in branding, you will have a more.
You will, you will be more trusted by your stakeholders. You will have more loyalty from them if you start to think on those terms from the very beginning. So when funding ends, then you have already made investments in intellectual capacity, you know, in people's minds, basically, because that's what branding is. So you don't have to start from scratch in an organic funding. As ended, all my tax stuff is done. How do I sell this? What do I do now? So that's a bad way to go about it. You have to have. You have. You have to bridge way before funding ends, how you will actually communicate this. I hope I'm explaining this well enough, but do you understand what I mean?
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yes, I did. Of course I'm biased because I already know you and I know, let's say, the rationale, because let's not forget you are the godfather behind Enlit, which was a bit. I found it strange when I first heard it, but then I heard the story of Enlit and how it became Enlit, let's say this brand. And everything came. All the puzzle pieces came into place.
So this is actually a very nice way to go to my next question, which is about storytelling. What role does storytelling play in ensuring that results remain relevant and visible beyond a project's official end?
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Yeah, fantastic question. So, I mean, if you just go back and even to the analytics project, when I was explaining this to you guys.
The oldest kind of entertainment in the world's history is telling stories around the fire.
Go back 10,000 years and think about people telling stories around the fire. No wi fi, no television, no books, no nothing. So storytelling is important. And we believe stories.
We believe in a good story. So a good brand always needs to tell a good story that should be engaging enough that it captures you and you understand it and you believe in it. You're a part of it. So storytelling is super duper important. And you can't really create a good brand without a good story.
It's not like putting lipstick on a pig. I mean, it's not that bad. It's not about the cosmetics or the superficial things. It's about the deep meaning of the brand DNA or, you know, the reason for being. You need that story. You, for example, you know, in the beginning you said brand instead of brand. You know, usually Brandt is the company's name, and that's the story I use. Brandt. You know, I roll my tongue when I say it. It is a Nordic word. It's a word that Norwegian settlers, they took all the belongings and moved to America to a better life. And one of the things they brought with him also was this word Brandt, which became brandy. And that's. That's a story in what I do, for example, I mean, I tell this story all the time because I've told this story and I've scored one point in connecting with people. So that's what a story does. I mean, they may forget the name, but they. Yeah, that was the guy with a name. That was an original. You know, it's easier to recollect the story than taglines, for example, so.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. It makes total sense. And just for our audience, I want to say that you are from Iceland, so you are entitled to talk about Norwegian. Sorry about Nordic words, because sometimes. Yeah, exactly. I did know that about brander, though, and that it was a Nordic word. That is news to me at this point. I want to take a little bit of a break from the project and discuss a little bit your book, which was.
It was read like, I don't know, I read it so fast and it was so interesting with all the interviews from people from the sector.
Can you please elaborate a little bit? Tell me a few things about your books, about your book and where our audience can find it. Because I think it will be a very nice introduction. Even though it's not focusing on projects, it's focusing on people and companies. I think it's a good introduction. Introduction for someone to see what branding can do.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: Yeah. There are actually three of them, but the one who's the most engaging for those who are not like academics is sustainable energy branding.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: I apologize. I read the one that was more to my. I don't know, for me, easier to understand.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: And that's the one you should have read. The other ones are written for academic purposes only, with a lot of modeling, etc. Because behind simple truths should be science. And that's what branding, my branding, is. So they are written for that purpose, basically. But the reason why I wrote that book is I was talking to. I was attending Euroelectric and, you know, where all the incumbents come together. And I was talking to then the CEO of Atenval, Magnus Howell, a great guy. And I was just entering. This is before I met you. This is 2015. I mean, nobody knew me. This was the first appearance ever, you know, on, you know, on the energy states.
So. And he saw me talking and I spoke with him afterwards and we just had a pleasant conversation. Then I met him a year after, you know, another Euroelectric event. And now then I was kind of more confident and I was saying, okay, Markus, what do I have to do to. So we'll. We'll do some business together. And. And, you know, in this energy branding thing. Then he said, well, Friedrich, I believe you when you're telling me that energy branding matters. I believe you. And by the way, Matal is like, excellent in branding and they were the ones I looked to in the beginning. So, I mean, they're way out there. I believe you. But I need others also. To tell me that you are okay to work with.
That's why I decided to write the book. And he was the first one I interviewed, actually. So I wrote the book just to give people within the energy space voices from others that are doing well. So not just me or my academic career or my modeling or whatnot, but what actual people are saying about why you should engage in branding. And I really learned a lot from writing the book myself because there were so many smart people that were explaining the way they saw branding. And on the top, you have the CEO level, they understand it, but then it goes down to the organization starts to get diluted. I mean, the brand is on a PowerPoint deck somewhere or in an adword. But the further you go down to a big organization, then the employees stopped engaging with. They didn't understand it in the same way.
So one of my goals today and with the book also is to show the brand. Their brand is the central piece of your existence. I sound very dramatic here when I say this, but still is because it engages externally, it also engages internally and internally in the employees. And this is the same brand. So you have to have this consistent brand message going out and going in.
And that's how a good brand does it. And what is synonymous with those people that I talk to, they are, they're all very, they all understand the power of brands. But there is still work to be done to get normal people and energy to understand it within the companies.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: How can strong branding make a project more attractive to future investors, policymakers or industry partners?
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know about the policymakers. And that's, you know, that's a category on its own. But for future investors, I mean, that can be the go or no go, whether somebody wants to invest in you. If you can't outline your vision and communicate it strongly through a strong brand, you don't really have much. And investors pick up on that. If they see that you have paid no mind to how your brand talks, walks, acts, you know how you should feel when you see it. And you haven't matched that to segments that you want to talk to.
You have nothing really. You just have a good product. And we tend to be product oriented. We love our product, we love our tech, we love our things. But that's the wrong way of doing things. We need to be consumer oriented. So a brand is our conduit, our link to our end clients. And again, for an investor, they need to see that link. Policymakers should see it. But I can't speak to that with the same passion as I can for investors.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Fair enough. What about citizens and energy consumers, though? Do you see branding as a tool to build trust between the projects, the solutions that the project are proposing, and citizens and energy consumers? And I'm asking you this because many of the projects that have funding from the European Commission work with energy communities, for example, and I know firsthand that they're having issues convincing people to participate in communities and interact with their tools, their projects.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, one big yes to the word trust that you mentioned. One of the cornerstones of a brand is trust.
I buy something, I'll take part in something because I trust it.
So, and that is one of the cornerstones of most of the brands. We go to the convenience store and you pick stuff and you put it in your. In your shopping cart. And you don't think. You just think like a fraction of a second in many cases, because you just take your. Whatever your. Your kind of yogurt you want, the kind of bread you want, the cereals you want, because you know it, you had had it before, and you trust it. And the word trust is there. So cornerstone of brand is trust. But that's not the only thing. If you look, for example, to why would you pay too much for guzy bag? I mean, how they said much as a guzy bag, I don't know, it's expensive.
That's not about trust. Maybe it's about vanity or ego or signaling your personal brand. But in some cases, you can even slide trust in there. You go to a meeting with your guzy bag and people, oh, she has good taste. I think they trust her or him. So this is a terrible way to answer your question. In terms of taking a good year back.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: It makes sense, Friedrich. Believe me, it makes total sense. I understand that completely. Yeah. And I think our audience will also understand. No, no, it's a very good example, and it is spot on.
I couldn't agree more with you.
Whether that is a good thing or not, I don't know. But it makes sense.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: Yeah. I think also to drive that point home. I mean, so in our space and, you know, and in. Within the, you know, all those grants, you know, branding is not a part of it.
And a lot of people just don't believe in brands. They say, like, you're a B2B CEO, and you say to me or someone else, I don't really believe in branding. It's just a cost, it's not an investment. So I don't want to spend money on it. That's where this discussion end. But then this same CEO goes out and buy Nike shoes or Apple watch or, you know, or Tumi bag or whatever, because they are brands. That's a big paradox there. They, they don't believe in brands, but their world is. They live in worlds of brands and they engage in it, but they just don't apply it to what they're doing. Some, sometimes. And that's a very common place in our space. I mean in energy and also in the, in the funding space. It's just that you just don't.
It's not there. It's not considered relevant, although it is.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: I don't know if it's fair, however, if, for example, we're talking about colossal enterprises that have a lot of money to invest in creating an image for themselves, and then we're talking about other projects that are our focus here, or people or smaller businesses that do not have this, this opportunity. So I want to ask you, what simple low cost branding practices can small consortia, for example, adopt to boost their project's visibility and legacy?
[00:23:06] Speaker B: This is a fantastic point, particularly around whether you're a big company or a small one. I mean, the big ones have all the budgets in the world to buy ads, do whatever.
But that's not what branding is about at the end of the day only. It's about how you behave and how you talk, what you say, how you dress, how do you talk about your product, etc. So the first thing in terms of branding, you don't have to go out and do business with an ad agency and do some creative stuff, paying a lot of money. That's not what this is all about. It's a strategic exercise to understand holistically what you're all about. Just go, I mean, how are you and how are you different from others? That's a big thing. That's like one of the fundamental parts of how am I different? And how can you explain that in a normal conversation with a lead or down the line? So not a flashy logo, but how am I different? How do I talk to segments differently? So how have I lined up, broken down the world into pieces that I want to talk to? I mean, I want to talk to 0.1% of the population because they are my target or 1% or 5% or whatever that is? Segmentation is one thing. And how am I unique? What makes me unique and believable? What is my brand promise? What am I saying differently? So those are the three main pillars, but then you also have the sustainability pillar or The ESG pillar. So how do I, how do, how does my offering talk to, you know, those who are more sustainable if they are my target, but if they're not your target, that's not your core. So it's not about the fleshy logos or the images. It's about how you have strategically aligned who you are and how you talk.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: Okay, that makes total sense. And this is something that I think communication and dissemination leads in every project consortium can actually work on and showcase it on the website in a nice narrative story like way.
You mentioned sustainability and the EU commission is focusing more and more on sustainability.
It's increasing every year. How do you see branding evolving within this context?
[00:25:26] Speaker B: One more good question, I have to say, but this is a fickle thing. I mean my small events like charge energy, powering energy bands. So we talk about how when we're talking two days, what we're talking about here in 30 minutes.
And this year we've been focusing a lot on how do you behave differently as a brand in a world that's changing on you.
So the foundation of a brand, I've set many foundations of brands. I realize that in this call, but one of the, you know, a brand is a long term theme. It's not a short term thing. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's not a, it's not a bouquet you bring to your spouse when you come home. It's the tree that you plant that it grows year after year after year. That's branding money. You may do some campaigns along the way which are in terms of bouquets, but they have to, but they have to support a long term vision. So, so what happens, you know, when, when the world turns like it did, you know, with the election in America we where the emphasis was changing and how if you were emphasizing sustainability but now you really, you shouldn't and you can't because of, you know, external things. So yeah, this is my intro to answering the question. But if, but, but the simple answer is, I mean of course sustainability is important.
ESG factors are important, renewable is important, all those words are important. But most people don't understand them.
Like the normal person doesn't really understand all those words and they really don't care unless it affects their wallet. So if you are a brand in that space where you really have a product that you want to tailor to this segment that is interested and was willing to pay more for sustainable things, throwing words around, sustainable ESD green, then you have to understand exactly how your target group is thinking about it.
If you're not in that space, then you don't have to think so much about it. I'm not saying you should behave unethically or pollute as much as you want to. You have to have a certain standard in it. But that's just not a part of your value proposition. And how you talk about your brands, and I know like big energy brands, not to name any, that had pivoted at the beginning of the year. They were all about sustainability, but now they're focused on something else. For example, like, you know, how, how, for example, how are good brands? Well, I'm thinking more specific case. There's one major energy company, European one, that also operates in America. So they kind of faded away from the sustainability message and talked about other benefits of their brand. I mean, how it makes your everyday life better and how your cars, electricity, cars, is performing better, etc. I'm not explaining this well, but you can't really.
This is not a black or white answer to the question because ESD is an evolving thing and it's changing fast.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Stay tuned in the future to see how this is going to evolve further.
I want to close our discussion because we're at the end with a message from you. This is sort of the way I always like to finish the discussions that I have.
So if you could give one piece of advice to project coordinators who wanted their results to live beyond the project's lifetime, what would that be for those.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Who have listened that far? I mean, it's quite clear what I think about it, but it's just not pivot your thinking, but allow some mind space already to think about how you're going to communicate your product and how you do that through a strong brand. And that does take an effort. I mean, on the surface, I mean, it takes mental space, which most of us don't have. You don't never have time. It may take some money because maybe one must work with some consultants to help fine tune this. But just open your mind up for the idea that there's more out there than just your product. The world does not care about your product, but they care about how it solves their problem. So you have to be sure that you can actually talk into their problem areas. They don't care about you, they only care about themselves. So the better you can hone your messages and have it coming from an organic and transparent place for you as a brand, then there's much more chance that you'll be successful.
[00:30:02] Speaker A: Wise words, Friedrich. Thank you very much for this conversation.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: My pleasure.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: You've been listening to the EU Energy Projects Podcast, a podcast brought to you by Enlit and Friends. You can find us on Spotify, Apple and the Enlit World website.
Just hit subscribe and you can access our other episodes, too. I'm Aretita Radimo. Thank you for joining us.
