NRG's 'You've Got the Power' campaign, created by Union in 2022, uses integrated cross-platform media to reframe energy choice as simple and empowering across
ARCHIVEHow NRG Turned Energy Choice Into a Cross-Platform Creative Moment
NRG's 'You've Got the Power' is a 2022 integrated public utility campaign created by independent creative and performance marketing agency Union, launched in June 2022 across seven deregulated US states, positioning the act of choosing an energy provider as simple, accessible, and fundamentally empowering for everyday consumers.
The campaign operates under the broader integrated platform Union titled 'Keep it Simple' for NRG Home. Its central proposition is direct: consumers living in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio already possess the right to choose their energy supplier, and switching to NRG requires nothing more than a visit to pickNRG.com. That framing — you hold the power, not the utility — is both the creative hook and the strategic differentiator in markets where energy deregulation exists but consumer awareness of that freedom remains uneven.
The campaign runs as a true 360-degree effort across paid social, programmatic display, over-the-top streaming, paid search, and linear television, with placements confirmed on ABC and other broadcast networks. Its multi-channel architecture reflects a performance marketing orientation: reach consumers at multiple touchpoints, reduce friction at every stage, and drive measurable action toward a single destination URL. NRG served more than three million retail customers at the time of the campaign's launch, according to the brand's own documentation, giving the creative significant existing-customer context alongside its new-customer acquisition mandate. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 56 out of 100, reflecting solid channel discipline and a clear value proposition against creative execution that plays it relatively safe within the public utility category.
ARCHIVENRG operates in a competitive subset of the United States energy market: deregulated retail electricity and natural-gas supply. The strategy behind 'You've Got the Power' is built on a consumer insight that is particular to this environment — most households in deregulated states do not know they can choose their energy provider, and those who do often assume switching is complicated. Union's campaign addresses both barriers simultaneously.
The seven target states — Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio — are among the most established deregulated energy markets in the United States, according to energychoicematters.com, which tracks competitive retail energy supply across North American jurisdictions. In these markets, competitive retail electricity suppliers like NRG compete directly against incumbent utilities and against one another for residential and small-business customers. NRG's 2022 annual filing, available through Investors Nrg, reported the company serving recurring electricity and natural-gas sales across 24 US states, with approximately 5.4 million Home customers on its books. That scale gives the brand both reach and a data asset that informs the performance marketing architecture Union built around this campaign.
The competitive context is meaningful. In deregulated US markets, NRG contends with suppliers including Constellation Energy, which markets directly to residential customers under its own brand, and Viridian Energy, which competes on green energy positioning in several of the same northeastern states. Against those rivals, NRG's 'Keep it Simple' platform stakes out a clarity-and-ease positioning rather than a price or environmental angle, which represents a deliberate strategic choice. The cross-platform media mix — paid social, programmatic display, OTT, paid search, and television — reflects a full-funnel approach designed to build awareness at the top while capturing intent-driven consumers through search at the point of decision.
Director Jakub Blank leads the video execution of 'You've Got the Power,' with director of photography Jake Colletta handling the visual craft, according to production documentation cited by Eastedit Co. Together they construct a domestic world in motion: a woman moves energetically through her home, operating household objects with ease, while a puppy training sequence provides the campaign's sharpest tonal contrast — illustrating what is genuinely complicated versus what NRG promises is not.
That structural contrast drives the creative logic throughout. The campaign's copy lands the comparison plainly: training puppies is complicated; switching your energy provider is not. The voiceover reinforces the brand's empowerment positioning with lines sourced from the campaign itself — 'There's nothing more empowering than choice' and 'While we provide the energy, it's you who's got the power.' Both lines function as campaign signatures, anchoring the emotional register in agency and self-determination rather than savings or sustainability, which are the more common creative territories for retail energy advertising in the United States.
Austin Scott, Executive Creative Director at Union, spoke to the dual mandate of the work as reported by Little Black Book: 'NRG is a special client. They're customer focused and believe in the power of creativity. We were able to leverage data and creativity to create a campaign strategically focused on driving the bottom line. The result, however, is far from bland.' That statement captures the tension the creative team was navigating — performance marketing discipline on one side, brand-building creative ambition on the other. The campaign's Telly Award recognition in the Craft — Videography and Cinematography category, as confirmed by tellyawards.com, suggests the production quality cleared a credible industry threshold even within a campaign framework oriented primarily toward conversion. The single media asset at the centre of the campaign carries significant weight given that concentrated format.
The 'You've Got the Power' campaign earned a Telly Award in 2022 in the Craft — Videography and Cinematography category, as confirmed by tellyawards.com, with the credit attributed to Valtech and NRG. That recognition is the only independently verified performance metric publicly available for this campaign. No verified audience reach figures, conversion rates, or media spend data for 'You've Got the Power' are publicly documented beyond the production award.
What the campaign's structural decisions do reveal, however, is a performance-oriented organisation of resources. The five-channel media mix — paid social, programmatic display, OTT, paid search, and television — covers the full consumer journey from passive brand exposure through active intent signalling, with a single action destination, pickNRG.com, absorbing all downstream traffic. That architecture is efficient for tracking and attribution, which aligns with Union's stated positioning as a creative and performance marketing agency. The geographic concentration in seven deregulated states further sharpens targeting, allowing media budgets to be allocated toward markets where the consumer choice message is legally and commercially relevant rather than diffused across the full United States.
The Clapboard Score of 56 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its brief competently and earns craft recognition, but does not dramatically redefine its category or produce documented breakthrough results at scale. The creative proposition is clear and the production is polished; the limiting factor is a creative idea that, while well-executed, does not push the public utility category into substantially new expressive territory. The campaign functions as a reliable integrated activation rather than a landmark piece of public service communication.
'You've Got the Power' is a 2022 integrated campaign for NRG Home, created by agency Union, telling consumers in seven deregulated US states they can choose their energy provider and switch easily at pickNRG.com. It ran across paid social, programmatic display, OTT, paid search, and television including ABC.
The campaign targeted seven US states where retail energy deregulation gives consumers the right to choose their supplier. Those states are Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, all markets where NRG competes against incumbent utilities and other retail energy suppliers.
Union, an independent creative and performance marketing agency, created the campaign. Director Jakub Blank and director of photography Jake Colletta led production. Austin Scott served as Executive Creative Director at Union, describing the work as driven by both data and creativity, as reported by lbbonline.com.
The campaign won a Telly Award in 2022 in the Craft — Videography and Cinematography category, as confirmed by tellyawards.com, with the credit attributed to Valtech and NRG. That award represents the only independently verified industry recognition publicly documented for this specific campaign execution.
The Clapboard Score for 'You've Got the Power' is 56 out of 100. The score reflects solid cross-platform channel discipline and a clear consumer empowerment proposition, balanced against creative execution that, while polished and award-recognised, does not substantially redefine the public utility advertising category in the United States.
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