‘The version of your business that never got built. That’s the real cost of energy.’

This is the punchy strapline for Tem, the energy transactions scaleup’s new brand campaign. The disruptive message has been designed to remind the UK that energy shouldn't come at the expense of growth. The campaign will also include a 48-hour coffee shop takeover in the heart of Soho, London. 

Entitled ‘The real cost of energy’, the campaign tears up the energy category playbook of savings claims, one-off tariffs and customer service promises. Instead, it reframes energy as an economic growth issue, of unrealised business potential. 

The campaign spotlights all the things UK businesses stop doing when energy costs become unpredictable. From investing in hiring, product development and new sites to making strategic decisions, the work aims to shine a light on all the plans that get put on pause when energy uncertainty hits.

The pop-up coffee shop used the empty unit to remind business owners that their energy bills shouldn’t get in the way of them running their business. 

The products available in the coffee shop were all named to highlight the cost of the energy crisis. From the Variable Rate Iced Coffee, the Spike Soda and Croissatility, the names were designed to highlight the cost of the middleman-heavy wholesale market that keeps energy costs high and businesses struggling to realise their growth potential. 

In addition, the Tem team also sparked conversations with visitors about the real cost of energy instability on UK businesses and how they can better insulate themselves from energy shocks.

While the concept café has now closed its doors in London, the wider out of home campaign is continuing across major London rail and underground stations, including Euston and Victoria, along with digital campaign vans taking the message to Parliament, and soon driving across the UK to Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool to meet Tem’s customers on the ground. 

Developed in-house by Tem's brand and creative team, the campaign runs across large-format billboards, full-page print and copy-led tube placements. Each execution is built around a single idea: that the real cost of energy isn't what's on the bill, but what businesses stop doing because of it. 

The launch lands as UK businesses face a fresh wave of energy turmoil. The ongoing Iran war has sent oil and gas markets skyrocketing, with the IEA describing the situation as the "greatest global energy security challenge in history". For UK businesses, it is a near-identical replay of the conditions that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and a stark reminder that the UK's wholesale energy market remains hostage to events thousands of miles away.

According to Tem’s analysis, average business electricity bills rose 63% in the three years following the 2021 energy crisis. The impact is now more acute, with data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showing that 66% of UK businesses reported concern about energy prices in April this year. 34% cite energy costs as a reason they're considering raising prices in May.

Jemma Wong, Chief Growth Officer at Tem, said: "Every spike in energy prices has a second-order effect on the real economy. Investment gets delayed, hiring slows, expansion plans get shelved - it’s a drag on growth that businesses feel long before the industry talks about it publicly. We wanted to make those hidden costs impossible to ignore, and to offer UK businesses a different way of transacting, one where energy doesn’t hold you back, and you’re not reliant on a vulnerable wholesale energy market.”

Matt Price, VP of Brand and Creative at Tem, added: "We wanted to make a campaign that reflected the reality businesses are actually dealing with right now. Most energy advertising talks about saving money, but the bigger issue is what volatility does to confidence, decision-making and growth.”

He continued: “This campaign is really about the opportunities that never happened, the hires delayed, the expansion paused, the plans made smaller because energy stopped feeling predictable. Creatively, we wanted to move away from what people expect energy advertising to look and sound like, and tell a story that feels more human and emotionally true to the moment businesses are operating in.”

By challenging the traditional focus on price and pointing to the larger, human cost of the energy crisis, this campaign successfully cuts through by eschewing category norms.