In March 2008, Mercury Energy, best known as an electricity retailer, wanted to make its lesser-known ‘dual fuel’ gas service famous. (At a time of year when Kiwis only want to do one thing: hold a BBQ.)

We built the world’s biggest: A 60 ft long monster. It took 2 months to design and build, 9 engineers to assemble and used 96 gas burners that could cook up to 4,800 sausages/hr. It premiered on national breakfast TV, securing over 20 minutes of prime-time editorial coverage; And made the front page of NZ’s biggest selling broadsheet The New Zealand Herald. And it was visible via Google earth. Around 15,000 people turned up and the bbq was manned by Mercury staff and celebrity ‘chefs’: TV soap stars and Rugby League legends. Even NZ’s Prime Minister, Helen Clark, turned up.

Over $500,000 dollars of PR value was generated across prime time airtime and regional and national press.1) Week-on-week comparison results: comparing the week prior to the dual fuel campaign commencing to the week of the BBQ event - total switches have increased by 268%.2) Month-on-month comparison - taking the BBQ event week and comparing it with the same week in the previous month (pre-campaign) - total switches have increased by 204%.3) Comparing the BBQ event week with the same week two months prior - total switches have increased by 724%.