Electric vehicle charging company Chargemaster has just opened the EV Centre, the UK’s first ever Electric Vehicle Experience Centre, in the centre:MK shopping mall.

The EV Centre is a multi-brand showroom which has been designed to offer impartial advice to shoppers. It is staffed by highly trained independent professionals whose brief is to educate and inspire people about the benefits of electric vehicles.

The retail division of experience agency TRO was responsible for the design, production and installation of the EV Experience Centre, which features a number of engaging touchpoints to enrich shoppers’ showroom experience.

Ben Taylor, Retail Director at TRO, comments: “We are delighted to be involved in such a ground-breaking project which has taken our expertise in experience into the permanent retail space. Through our knowledge of experience marketing we understand the power of immersive techniques to engage consumers and drive change and ultimately buying habits.  Our involvement from the design and production through to the installation has been delivered end-to-end by our in-house team.”

Chargemaster is responsible for the running and management of the store for its five-year duration. David Martell, Founder and CEO of Chargemaster, says: “Being part of such a high-profile and diverse project is very exciting for Chargemaster. The centre will be the first of its kind and we are sure it will pave the way for other cities to follow. We are looking forward to welcoming Milton Keynes shoppers and showing them everything that going electric has to offer.”

The ground-breaking EV Experience Centre was opened on July 20th 2017 by Jesse Norman MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department of Transport. It was developed as part of Milton Keynes’ £9 million ‘Go Ultra Low’ Cities programme, which encourages the uptake of low emission vehicles, with a target of 23% of all car sales being electric or plug-in by 2021.

Founded in 1982, TRO is a global experiential event agency which is connects people and brands through memorable experiences. The agency offers in-house insights, strategy, creative, production, field staffing, digital/social/mobile and measurement departments and has 16 offices in 11 countries around the world.

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Wyke Farms, the UK’s largest independent cheese producers and also generators of renewable energy, has announced a national partnership with Good Energy, the 100% renewable electricity and green gas company.

Wyke Farms is running an on-pack competition with Good Energy for 20 weeks, giving consumers the opportunity to win one of several prizes. The main prize is a lifetime supply of renewable electricity (value £22,000), as well as 20 one year’s supply prizes (capped at £550 per year each) and 50 Somerset produce hampers, worth £50 each. The competition appears on all Wyke Farms Cheddar packs, across the core range of Mature, Extra Mature and Vintage.

Both brands share a passion for food and energy provenance and, through this partnership, hope to increase consumer understanding of the environmental consequences of their consumption choices, be it for food or energy.

With over 50% of UK food coming from a foreign country, Wyke Farms’ is looking for a way to tell its farm to fork story. The Clothier family has been making award winning cheddar from their traditional family recipe, in the heart of Somerset, for over 155 years, with all of their milk coming from their family farm or other local family farms and British Red Tractor farms.

Meanwhile, Good Energy, the UK’s first 100% renewable electricity supplier, is keen to educate consumers about where its energy comes from. Their research shows that over 60% of power used to generate electricity is imported from abroad, travelling on average up to 2,500 miles before it reaches the UK. All of the electricity Good Energy supplies to the National Grid is sourced from UK renewable sources like wind and solar, as well as biofuels generated from food waste at Wyke Farms.

Wyke Farms and Good Energy both claim to be leaders in sustainability. Juliet Davenport, CEO and Founder of Good Energy, comments: “We are two very like-minded businesses so it’s great to be working together. Using food waste to generate renewable energy is a great example of a sustainable business in action, and we’re proud to say that some of this unique power makes up part of our electricity.”

Rich Clothier, third generation family member and Managing Director of Wyke Farms, comments: “The prize offering of our competition has the humble cow at the very heart of it; firstly, by supplying the milk to make the cheese and then to create the waste that generates the power, which will be supplied by Good Energy to fulfill the prize. It’s working with nature at its very best.”

Wyke Farms products are available nationwide and can be found in Asda, Co-op, Makro, Sainsbury’s Tesco and Waitrose. Good Energy sells 100% renewable electricity and green gas to thousands of homes and business around the UK via the National Grid.

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Shell’s Make the Future Festival, taking place from June 30^th to July 3rd on a site the size of four football pitches in London’s Olympic Park, is set to be the largest branded festival of 2016 according to global creative agency, Imagination, which created it for the Anglo-Dutch energy giant.

The event is expected to attract 40,000 visitors, including 9,000 school children from around the UK.

The Make the Future Festival is an opportunity for the public to experience energy innovations from start-ups as well as from Shell and some of the world’s smartest students. There will be over 15 thousand square meters of activities to play, learn and share, including a 2.2 km race track plus entertainment and celebrity appearances from Rachel Riley and football legend Pelé, amongst others.

The Festival will feature interactive experiences that blur the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds, including a mobile ‘maker pass’ that allows visitors to vote up their favourite ideas, live leader boards, roll about in giant plastic balls that challenge visitors to generate as much energy as they can (then posts videos of their efforts to YouTube), interactive games, virtual reality experiences, an Instagram takeover that transforms the @shell account into a live interactive map and numerous live social media streams.

The festival is set out in six interactive and connected zones including:

• Main stage – celebrity guests and live science shows will entertain the crowds;
• Idea incubator – an opportunity to meet Britain’s young entrepreneurs and start-ups and learn about projects that aim to meet our growing energy needs while reducing carbon emissions;
• City life – including a football challenge where footsteps create energy (featuring a guest appearance by Pelé);
• Future energy – people can get involved by getting inside a giant energy-creating transparent plastic ball. Virtual reality headsets take them on a journey deep underground to see how CO₂ can be captured and stored safely;
• Mobility – allowing visitors to inspect energy efficient cars and explore the F1 garage exhibition;
• Hands on science – letting people make salt water cars, learn about programming and get involved.

The central attraction will be Shell’s Eco-marathon – a competition that challenges teams of students from top universities around the world to design and build cars that can go as far as possible on a litre of fuel. A race track has been built to stage daily competitions of the world’s most energy efficient cars.

Imagination’s Group CEO and Global Creative Director, Douglas Broadley, says the festival will offer visitors never-before-seen experiences. “Shell has successfully been running the global student innovation competition Eco-Marathon for many years to highlight the efforts made around the world to improve energy efficiency. This festival raises its ambitions even higher to inspire, excite and inform everyone who attends – from school children learning about the environment to engineers working on cutting edge energy innovation.”

Shell Make the Future Festival takes place at The South Park Lawn, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from Thursday June 30 – Sunday July 3 09:00-18:00 with last entry at 17:00.

Visitor tickets can be requested at Shell Make the Future

Imagination is an independent global creative agency established in 1968 to deliver brand communications via transformative experience ideas. Drawing on the skills of creative strategists, architects, designers, filmmakers, animators, creative technologists, UX designers, social media experts, art directors and copywriters, Imagination helps clients to measurably meet their brand and business challenges. Clients include Aston Martin, Canon, Commonwealth Bank, Delphi, Ford, GE, Guinness, Harvey Nichols, Jaguar Land Rover, NFL, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, Royal Australian Navy, Samsung, Shell, Siemens and Tetra Pak.

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