Schneider Electric provides energy and automation solutions for efficiency and sustainability. It addresses homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure and industries, by combining energy technologies, real-time automation, software and services.
Schneider Electric was an early adopter of ESG concerns in 2005. In the years since, the company has reinforced and increased its ESG efforts for the purpose of contributing towards making the world greener and more inclusive. This has led up to the Schneider Sustainability Impact (SSI) program that spans 2021-2025, built on six long-term commitments that deliver on each of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Both Schneider Electric’s industrial automation and digital energy business units tasked Vertic with research and collection of insights pertaining to the ‘outside-in’ perspective of their customers’ top-of-mind issues, which could be used as a means to connect and tell the sustainability story through thought-leadership content. Vertic was subsequently tasked with the digital benchmarking exercises that would inform Schneider Electric whether their campaigns were working to drive closer association of the brand within the chosen topic areas.
If we no longer go online, but in fact live online, then the means of benchmarking a brand’s association with a given theme should similarly be done through online means. Vertic envisioned a new way of research and benchmarking that is appropriate for the digital age. The scale available through digital provides real-time benchmarking capabilities, and a clearer insight into brand relevancy in a digital age”
Vertic’s strategy was based on finding top-of-mind topics of interest and passion within customer audiences. We recognized the white-space opportunity areas available to Schneider Electric by measuring ‘demand’ for each these topics, in comparison to ‘supply’ coming from corporate and awareness competitors. Finally, we used these same digital means to continue to measure Schneider Electric’s association with the themes following their campaign efforts.
Vertic’s Zero Degrees of Separation methodology is based on gathering data and insights from both search engine analysis tools and social media monitoring tools, which can then be automated for analysis with the purpose of understanding and measuring audience ‘demand’ for content within specific topic areas. Applying a filter of Schneider Electric’s business priorities to these topics, the research subsequently identifies sub-themes that are niche areas that can be exploited. This methodology then recognizes the nomenclature and taxonomy used; the language, terminology, semantics and syntax applied by the audiences when discussing and looking for information within the topic areas. After understanding the ‘demand’, Vertic then measured the juxtaposing ‘supply’ coming from other organizations or individuals within the market to recognize the key company or individual influencers as well as what areas may be saturated vs. open to penetrate. This gave us a strategic recommendation on which Schneider Electric could position and message their campaign. Beginning in 2020, Vertic has been subsequently performing ongoing digital exercises to measure Schneider Electric’s branded association within each of the topic areas, and the increase or decrease relative to competitors.
