Making Bionic’s first TV advert, during lockdown

About Bionic

Bionic is a PE-backed growth company that I joined as Chief Customer Officer, after 20 years in brand, creative and innovation agencies. We’re transforming the business from a white-label call centre for energy switching, to a tech-enabled service that makes it radically easier to run an SME.

At the end of 2019 we rebranded the business (which was previously known as Make It Cheaper) to Bionic to reflect our ‘hybrid’ customer experience that combines digital with world class human service.

Our business is built on amazingly strong relationships with the suppliers that we distribute, and with the partners (like Compare the Market, Just Eat and Starling Bank) for whose customers we provide a switching service.

In addition though, the business has always done some low-level direct marketing to SMEs, and now we’re turning up the volume on that in an effort to help different types of business owner (those that don’t already start with a Google search).

Our insight

Small business owners feel that they face increasing challenges, as costs increase, market conditions become more challenging, and Brexit creates uncertainty — and that’s without Covid-19. The increasing admin burden, including around essential services, is just another hassle they could do without.

Small business owners say that running a small business can feel like “battling a strong headwind”.

So that’s what we wanted to dramatise. We wanted to bring those ‘headwinds’ to life, with comedic exaggeration. And, of course, to show Bionic as the solution, calming the squall, by making business energy, insurance, broadband and loans ‘a breeze’.

A once-in-a-decade opportunity

We were going to do ‘headwinds’ as a digital campaign. But then lockdown happened, and something odd occured. The price of TV advertising collapsed, even though TV viewing was up. This was caused by normally…