In 2023 another power company called Trustpower was merged into Mercury Energy. Mercury wanted to mark their arrival in regions traditionally dominated by Trustpower (Bay Of Plenty, Dunedin, Wellington, and Tāupo) by leveraging their brand promise is Energy Made Wonderful to create talkability and brand love. Essentially, they wanted to do something wonderful for these communities.

The budget was $350K NZD ($210K USD). This strict budget needed to include design, build, PR, and transport to the four locations.

The Second Sun is a physical manifestation of Mercury’s core promise – Energy Made Wonderful. A seven metre high pop-art sculpture designed to not only look wonderful but make you feel wonderful too. The giant light therapy lamp is filled with 8,000 specially built that ease symptoms of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) by mimicking natural light.

It was made to give back to the community and be enjoyed by kiwis young and old who had missed out on summer and the wonderful energy the real sun would usually provide. It was placed in highly public areas where it could be enjoyed by all.

The Sun is the most interpreted icon in history. From cave art to corporate logos it appears everywhere in our visual language. The challenge was to create a new interpretation -an enormous installation that looks impressive and works as a light therapy lamp.

It had to generate enough light to affect the environment and people who encountered it, but also be transported. We needed to ensure it wasn’t so big that it dwarfed people standing next to it in a photo, but be big enough that it’s visually impressive and not swallowed up by a landscape.

The ‘eureka’ moment was deciding to design it as a semi-circle on the horizon. Slicing it in half gave us more surface area to illuminate, and allowed people to get closer and feel the effects. A semi-circle meant that we could travel and visit more communities than if it was a more complex design.

The aim of the Second Sun was to create brand love and PR for Mercury in areas where they were lesser known. Positive sentiment online and on ground was 98% (the highest of any activation in Mercury’s history) and in one key region (Bay Of Plenty) it was visited by nearly half of the local population. It was shared thousands of times on social media. Helping extend the reach to many others who couldn’t see it in person.

The Second Sun also achieved extensive earned media that far outweighed the initial budget. This included making the national television news and the front page of the national newspaper New Zealand Herald. It was also covered by over 30 other news outlets both nationally and internationally, including The Guardian.

And, most importantly, it made thousands of visitors feel a little bit better on the back of the summer they never had.