Following the 2020 energy crisis, So Energy had lost the confident challenger identity that once set it apart. Its tone of voice had become more cautious and apologetic, and its visual language had fragmented across digital, print, and social channels  making the brand harder to recognise and easier to ignore.Brand research revealed the core issue: lack of mental availability. Over half of non-customers hadn’t heard of So Energy at all, and spontaneous awareness sat at just 1%, meaning the brand simply wasn’t coming to mind when people considered energy providers. In a category dominated by large, familiar players, this made traditional brand-led campaigns ineffective. The priority wasn’t persuasion, it was recognition.

So Energy’s true advantage wasn’t price or scale, it was difference. Unlike the Big Six energy providers, So Energy had always stood for being more human, more straightforward, and more grounded in real life. But over time, the brand’s visual and verbal assets had drifted closer to category norms, eroding that distinctiveness. Working closely with Studio Blackburn, we rebuilt the brand system around one clear principle:
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‍If So Energy is going to grow, it has to look, sound, and behave like a challenger again.
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‍That meant re-engineering the brand’s core assets.

We introduced a bold electric yellow and refined supporting palette to increase visibility and cut through a crowded category. The tone of voice was sharpened from cautious and corporate to confident and direct. We reintroduced the capitalised typeface to strengthen presence and clarity, replaced generic stock photography with more human, real-life imagery, and developed a system of static and animated illustrations to give the brand a distinctive visual language beyond photography.

Crucially, this wasn’t a one-off refresh.

We created a practical brand system; templates, visual rules, and workflows.
So every touchpoint, from product pages to social posts, could reinforce the same clear, recognisable brand without slowing teams down.

The result was a brand that:
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Looked unmistakably So Energy.
Felt confident again.
And could be recognised even at a glance