Blue the Dog Returns for Season 2; Production Under Way

The propane industry’s consumer education program for 2017 will again feature Blue the Dog when it returns to airwaves in March. Advertisements developed in 2016, including the television and radio commercials that aired last year, will run through the end of May.

The Propane Education & Research Council (PERC) is continuing work on the campaign, shooting videos and photos with Blue in Los Angeles Jan. 12 and 13. The bobtail driver’s faithful pup will once again communicate with consumers about the benefits and versatility of propane in a sequel to his successful 2016 debut.

The video shoots took place at two Los Angeles homes and are highlighted by various and varied propane uses. Thirteen new videos will initially screen on PERC’s ProudlyPropane.com website and Facebook page in 2017, including entertaining videos designed to show Blue promoting propane appliances, celebrating holidays, and cheering the start of football and baseball seasons. There will also be additional propane-in-sports segments that will run online to coincide with NCAA basketball tournaments.

“We will use the pictures and video that come out of this shoot primarily in our digital communications through 2017,” said PERC director of communications Gregg Walker. “For instance, we’re getting some images and video of Blue enjoying indoor and outdoor propane appliances and celebrating the major holidays, and those shots will come in handy as we move through the year.” Materials from the Los Angeles shoot will be used predominantly online. Consumers encounter the campaign online on the Proudly Propane Facebook page and on ProudlyPropane.com. “We’re especially proud of that website, which got hundreds of thousands of visitors in 2016. That’s where consumers learn more about Blue, and it’s also where they learn more about propane appliances that let Americans live comfortably wherever and however they want.”

The videos and photos are part of a consumer education campaign that began last year after a U.S. Department of Commerce ruling that restricted the propane industry’s consumer education efforts for six years was rescinded. PERC then developed and unveiled a new consumer education campaign featuring a dog named Blue as the main character in April of last year at the National Propane Gas Association’s Southeastern Convention. “We’ll use those images to capture consumer attention for propane at the time when they’re thinking about these sports and holidays,” Walker said. The production team took photos and video of industry star Blue relaxing in front of a fireplace, enjoying his propane-heated home, watching hungrily as someone cooks with propane, getting ready to enjoy (or not) a warm bath with some propane-heated water, and hanging out in the backyard while his owner cooks on a grill and spends time by the fire pit.

The shoot on the second day featured Blue in scenes with an actor who plays his bobtail driver-owner around a Freightliner S2G propane-fueled bobtail supplied by Expo Propane (Bellflower, Calif.), a subsidiary of Energy Distribution Partners (EDP; Chicago). Additional shots on the second day included Blue outside in a yard festooned with a propane fire pit, grill, and propane-heated pool.

Mark Zimora, vice president of U.S. operations for EDP, and Scott Graham, general manager of Expo Propane, donated their time and the use of their equipment for the Los Angeles video and photo shoots. They have been involved with this PERC campaign since its inception last year. Graham drove the Expo Propane bobtail in the campaign’s television commercials, although an actor played the driver on camera. Zimora has attended several PERC photo and video shoots in the past and was impressed with the Los Angeles production. “I don’t think the industry knows—just to have a photo shoot or make a commercial—really what’s involved in coordination and logistics.”

Walker added that The Richards Group, the advertising agency helping with the consumer education campaign, along with PERC communications staff, handled the logistics of the shoot and hired a local production company to secure locations, create props, and shoot the photos and videos. Much of that involved directing Traveler and Remington, the two dogs that switch duties portraying Blue the Dog for the campaign. Two animal trainers spent much of the shoot directing the two Portuguese pointers to look in different directions. They used a selfie stick with a meat-laden fork at the end to keep the dogs’ attention.

“Traveler and Remington are phenomenal actors,” Walker said. “They’re very professional, and they are terrific on camera. They’re brothers.”

He commented that The Richards Group oversaw the casting of the actor who played the role of Blue’s bobtail driver-owner in still photographs and B-roll video. The actor appeared to be in his late 20s and was physically fit, which Walker said was an intentional casting move to attract young people to become propane truck drivers for an industry that has been challenged to find qualified drivers. “We made a point of featuring a driver who shows that being a driver is a cool job for people who are just starting out. We also wanted the driver to reflect the industry’s commitment to promoting employee fitness and health.”

He offered more detail on the use of the photos and video for the Los Angeles shoot, observing that the videos would be used for “B-roll” scenes. He explained that B-roll is video that runs in the background of a scene, along with a voiceover.

“For instance, we’re creating new videos for ProudlyPropane.com, one each on space heating, water heating, and outdoor living, to demonstrate the benefits of a home that runs on propane.” B-roll videos from the January shoot will feature Blue enjoying a propane-fueled home. “B-roll is something you can use in short, entertaining educational videos and you can also use it for humorous video clips on the website and in social media.”

Walker expanded on the purpose of the overall Proudly Propane campaign, noting that it is designed to increase Americans’ familiarity with the versatile fuel and improve their perceptions of it. He added that the council learned from its research in early 2016, before the campaign launched, that too few Americans knew much about propane and their perceptions were too low. The campaign is designed to “create an emotional connection with consumers, to remind them about propane and its benefits, and to make them feel good about it,” he said. What does that do for a propane company? “The campaign is aimed at making consumers more receptive to a company’s sales messages.”

The national campaign promotes the fuel, while local companies promote their products and services, he said. “We like to tell propane marketers, ‘Customers have been hearing from Blue; now they want to hear from you.’”

Walker said the consumer education initiative “is designed like any good brand campaign, especially one for a commodity that has not been able to talk to consumers for many years, to raise awareness, and we were very pleased with the results of the campaign in 2016. Those results gave us an awful lot of confidence going into 2017 that if we can get our advertising in front of current propane users and prospective propane users, we make a difference in how they feel about propane and improve the way they feel about propane.”

According to research carried out by Nielsen, favorability was up 13 percentage points among people who saw the ads in 2016, Walker said. He added that familiarity among non-users who saw the ads was up 16 percentage points, and that willingness to consider buying new propane appliances was 13 percentage points higher among propane users who saw the ads, compared with propane users who didn’t see the ads.

He added that the same television commercial spots that ran in 2016 will be back on the air this year as part of the Proudly Propane Clean American Energy campaign. The commercials were on the air for about three months last year. Advertising consultants advised PERC that the three-month airing was not so long that the concepts would be “worn out” with consumers. The ads still have legs. “We will also continue using the print ads in national magazines, and the radio spots from last year will run again starting in March on syndicated radio programs nationwide,” Walker said.

Social and digital components of the campaign have substantial value for consumers and for the industry, Walker noted. In 2016, consumers watched videos featuring Blue 45 million times in just 12 weeks, an average of a half million views a day. A Facebook-only consumer promotion — a drawing for one of five propane-fueled portable generators — attracted 71,000 entries. “That level of interaction with consumers complements our traditional advertising and helps build brand awareness and drive favorability,” Walker said. — Daryl Lubinsky