Brandon GeorgeCreative Director Start Something

A6 ATLANTA · 2012 · NEW BUSINESS PITCH 04 · It has to move now 03 · They don't care

The TV spot was produced in 48 hours. We won the account.

Two weeks to pitch Georgia Natural Gas. We walked in with a finished anthem spot, eight custom CDs burned the night before, and fifty band T-shirts that fit.

The Sweet Georgia Heat title page from the Georgia Natural Gas pitch deck, hand-lettered
Sweet Georgia Heat. The pitch, as presentedGeorgia Natural Gas

The stakes

Georgia Natural Gas put an RFP out looking for a creative change of pace and invited Engauge to pitch. Winning it meant a real chunk of revenue for the agency, and the whole agency knew it.

Two weeks. Against agencies who wanted it exactly as badly.

Every buyer is secretly asking whether you can move when it actually matters. Agencies ask it loudest, because they’re the ones who’ll be standing in the room when you don’t.

The move

Some people saw another utility company. We saw the only gas provider in the state with Georgia in its name. A company that serves the community, looks after its neighbors, and helps the state use less of what it sells.

That’s a message that’s too warm for a rate sheet. So we didn’t write one. We wrote a song.

Sweet Georgia Heat invited Georgians to spread a little love for their own state, powered by music instead of copy. Which is a fine idea on a page and a completely different animal in a pitch room, because a song has to actually exist.

The proof

The Sweet Georgia Heat wordmark, hand-lettered in white script on weathered wood, under the Georgia Natural Gas logo
The lockup. Sweet Georgia Heat, drawn by hand Atlanta · 2012 · new business pitch
Spread introducing Jules, the fire-string scorcher, and Blue, the hottest harmonica east of the Mississippi
The band we invented, with biographies. Jules and Blue Atlanta · 2012 · new business pitch
The Sweet Georgia Heat CD booklet open to its playlist, starting with Georgia’s Warmer
The CD, and the twelve tracks on it. Burned the night before Atlanta · 2012 · new business pitch
A branded T-shirt, lighter and guitar pick from the Sweet Georgia Heat pitch
The merch. Fifty shirts, delivered the morning of Atlanta · 2012 · new business pitch

The receipts

48 hours to produce the anthem spot
8 custom CDs, burned the night before the pitch
50 band T-shirts, delivered the morning of

Georgia Natural Gas signed with Engauge.

The credit

Engauge, and specifically the people who stayed up.

The result I’m proudest of here isn’t the account. It’s that the spot got produced in two days, the CDs got burned overnight, and the shirts showed up on time. None of that was one person’s doing. All of it was the actual pitch. The idea was fine. The proof that we’d kill ourselves for it is what closed.