ARCHIVEBritish Gas Puts Unpaid Carers at the Heart of Its Brand
British Gas launched 'Two Sides of the Story' in June 2019, a documentary-style film produced by Ogilvy London as part of the broader 'Share That You Care' initiative, spotlighting the lived experiences of unpaid carers across the United Kingdom and encouraging the public to recognise and acknowledge the people around them who provide care without pay.
The campaign centres on a social experiment format. Rather than foregrounding tariffs, technology or product features, the film invites viewers into intimate, unscripted conversations between unpaid carers and the people they support. The structural device — presenting two sides of the same caregiving relationship — generates emotional tension and reveals the quiet sacrifices that remain largely invisible in everyday public life. This approach positions British Gas not as a utility provider selling energy, but as a corporate actor with a conscience embedded in the communities it serves across the United Kingdom.
The 'Share That You Care' initiative was developed in partnership with Carers UK, the leading national charity representing unpaid carers. That institutional partnership lends the campaign credibility beyond conventional cause-marketing, anchoring British Gas's messaging in verified advocacy and lived experience. According to Clapboard's archive, the film contained a central statistic that more than 6.5 million people in the United Kingdom provided unpaid care for someone older, disabled, or seriously ill. That figure gave the campaign a factual spine, translating an abstract social issue into a concrete and arresting scale. The campaign was classified under the Power and Telecom category and the Industrial industry, though its creative ambition operated firmly in the territory of social-purpose filmmaking rather than category-specific product communication. The single film asset was published in the United Kingdom in June 2019 and archived on Clapboard and Ads of the World.
British Gas operates at the centre of a fiercely contested domestic energy market. In 2019, the six large suppliers — Centrica's British Gas, EDF Energy, E.ON, npower, ScottishPower and SSE — served just over seventy percent of domestic customers across Great Britain, according to Ofgem. The remaining share was supplied by a growing field of smaller and medium-sized challengers, also per Ofgem, intensifying pressure on the established players to differentiate on dimensions beyond price and tariff structure.
Switching activity in the United Kingdom energy market was running at historically elevated levels during this period, according to Ofgem, meaning that brand affinity and emotional loyalty had become genuine commercial levers. In this environment, a campaign that positions British Gas as a socially engaged institution — rather than simply a commodity supplier — addresses a real strategic vulnerability. Competitors such as Octopus Energy and Bulb were growing rapidly by emphasising values-driven propositions, and the incumbent players needed to demonstrate that scale did not preclude empathy.
The decision to centre the campaign on unpaid carers reflects a precise consumer insight. Carers UK, as the campaign's charity partner, provided both credibility and access to the communities depicted. Unpaid carers are disproportionately likely to be managing household energy costs under significant financial and emotional stress, making the overlap between British Gas's customer base and the caregiving population strategically coherent rather than opportunistic. By building the 'Share That You Care' initiative around this audience in the United Kingdom, Ogilvy identified a segment whose relationship with a utility brand could be genuinely transformed through recognition rather than through discounting or feature comparison.
Director David Stoddart shaped 'Two Sides of the Story' as an observational documentary rather than a conventional advertising film. Stoddart's approach places the camera in service of the subjects — unpaid carers and the people they look after — allowing the emotional architecture of each relationship to emerge through conversation rather than narration or scripted performance. The result reads closer to broadcast documentary than to category-standard energy advertising, a tonal decision that distinguishes the work from the product-led filmmaking typical of the Power and Telecom sector.
The production was handled by Dark Energy, with editing by Michael Owusu. Owusu's editorial construction is central to the film's title: 'Two Sides of the Story' is realised structurally through parallel testimony, cutting between the carer's account and the cared-for person's perspective on the same relationship. This rhythm generates empathy through contrast — revealing what each party withholds from the other — and sustains emotional engagement without resort to manipulative scoring or melodrama.
The creative team at Ogilvy London was led by Chief Executive Creative Director Charlie Wilson, with Creative Directors Nina Taylor and Luca Corteggiano shaping the campaign's conceptual direction. Art Director Neal Williamson and Copywriter Bertie Rapkin completed the core creative partnership. The decision to foreground the social experiment mechanic — placing real people in a structured reveal rather than casting actors — is consistent with a wider industry movement in 2019 toward authenticity-signalling in purpose-led advertising, particularly in the United Kingdom market where audiences had grown sceptical of polished corporate sincerity. The Drum covered the campaign at the time of its release, noting its place within British Gas's broader purpose communications.
ARCHIVENo verified performance data for 'Two Sides of the Story' is publicly available in terms of view counts, brand-lift metrics or commercial outcomes attributable directly to the campaign. Clapboard assigns the campaign a score of 66 out of 100, a rating that reflects solid creative craft and strategic clarity without reaching the threshold of benchmark-setting industry work.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrates several properties associated with effective purpose-led advertising. The partnership with Carers UK insulates the work against accusations of exploitation, providing an institutional endorsement that many cause-adjacent campaigns lack. The documentary format lowers the perceived distance between brand and subject, reducing the scepticism that often accompanies corporate social messaging in the United Kingdom. The statistic anchoring the film — more than 6.5 million unpaid carers across the UK, as cited in Clapboard's archive — gives audiences a memorable and shareable data point that extends the campaign's reach beyond the film itself.
The 'Share That You Care' framing also suggests a campaign designed for social diffusion: the phrase functions as both a call to action and a hashtag-compatible unit, enabling organic participation in a way that a product-led tagline could not. For a brand operating under the sustained competitive and reputational pressure facing British Gas in 2019, a campaign that earns attention and goodwill without requiring a product claim represents a meaningful, if difficult to quantify, strategic contribution. The work was archived by both Clapboard and Ads of the World, confirming its standing as a documented example of purpose-driven filmmaking within the UK energy and Industrial industry landscape.
'Two Sides of the Story' is a documentary-style film created by Ogilvy London for British Gas, published in the United Kingdom in June 2019. It forms part of the 'Share That You Care' initiative and spotlights the experiences of unpaid carers, drawing on the fact that more than 6.5 million people in the UK provide unpaid care, according to Clapboard's archive.
Ogilvy London created the campaign for British Gas. Chief Executive Creative Director Charlie Wilson led the agency team, with Creative Directors Nina Taylor and Luca Corteggiano. Director David Stoddart helmed the film through production company Dark Energy, with editing by Michael Owusu. Art Director Neal Williamson and Copywriter Bertie Rapkin completed the core creative team.
'Share That You Care' is the broader British Gas campaign initiative of which 'Two Sides of the Story' forms a part. Developed in partnership with Carers UK, it encourages the public across the United Kingdom to recognise and acknowledge unpaid carers in their lives, positioning British Gas as a socially engaged brand rather than a purely transactional energy supplier.
British Gas targeted unpaid carers because they represent a significant and underserved segment of its UK customer base. More than 6.5 million people in the United Kingdom provide unpaid care, per Clapboard's archive. In a switching-active energy market, as documented by Ofgem, emotional brand differentiation offered a strategic alternative to competing solely on price or tariff features.
'Two Sides of the Story' received a Clapboard Score of 66 out of 100. The rating reflects the campaign's solid creative craft, its credible charity partnership with Carers UK, and its coherent strategic positioning within the UK energy market, without reaching the threshold of the most celebrated purpose-led advertising of its era.
'Two Sides of the Story' represents Ogilvy's contribution to British Gas's purpose communications in 2019, focused on CRM and customer engagement. As reported by The Drum, the broader British Gas creative account was held by The&Partnership, formerly CHI and Partners, making this film a distinct social-purpose activation rather than a mainline brand campaign.
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