Electrical Safety First Launched, will it be a success story?

gazza — Sun, 30 Mar 2014 23:00:00 +0000

gazza Mon, 31/03/2014

On Friday 28th March 2014, Electrical Safety First launched their new website. It's purpose is to protect people, provide advice and information as well as to campaign for improvements to electrical safety. For those people who are not yet aware, Electrical Safety First is the new name replacing the Electrical Safety Council. The new name is part of an on going publicity campaign to raise public awareness of the dangers of electricity. A report published in March by the Communities and Local Government Committee, suggested that public awareness of Part P was at a shocking 14%.
Clearly more needs to be done to raise awareness of electrical safety in the home as a whole, so the Electrical Safety Council have started off by renaming and rebranding themselves.
Who came up with the name Electrical Safety First?
According to Electrical Safety First (or formally the Electrical Safety Council) it was to draw understanding from the public that they are a charity dedicated to reducing death and injury caused by electricity. The new name, Electrical Safety First was the culmination of 18 months of extensive research and consultation into what the public, electrical industry, the Government and other key stakeholders thought of and knew about what was then the Electrical Safety Council.
Findings following the research suggested that there was mixed opinion over who and what the Electrical Safety Council stood for. Some participants in the research thought the Electrical Safety Council was a trade association and others thought they formed part of Government.
Very few people knew the Electrical Safety Council was in fact a consumer charity. As a result of this, it was decided to replace the name with something that would easily be understood as a charitable organisation. The name chosen was Electrical Safety First.
The Aims of Electrical Safety First
The primary aim is to help the public and provide a more succinct method of supporting public electrical safety campaigns and to become recognisable as an electrical consumer charity dedicated to protecting the public from the dangers of electricity.
First Reactions to Electrical Safety First
The new Electrical Safety First website was launched on Friday 28th March 2014. There was no secret of the new name however, as prior notification of the change was clearly displayed on the former website of the Electrical Safety Council some weeks beforehand.
Just one working day later, there has been some re-action from within the electrical industry to the news. There has been some criticism from electricians over the name change, with majority view opposing the drop of the word “Council” and replacing it with “First”. According to some views, Council promotes Authority with the impression of being the go to place for advice on electrical safety. By replacing it with First now renders the charity meaningless and without the respect it commanded as a Council.
The over-riding view is that Electrical Safety First should have been a campaign title and not a name change for a charity that needs more publicity according to electricians posting on the Electrical Safety First Linked In page today.
Electrical Safety First has defended it's name change by saying their research pointed to the need for a change of name in order to keep things simple – something that consumers are asking for. The new name reflects the simplicity of the new brand which will be replacing technical jargon with simpler, less patronising language in campaigns. Electrical Safety First also say they have secured significant media coverage and will be continuing to try and raise the profile of the importance of electrical safety.
Next Steps
Although it is very early days for Electrical Safety First, only time will tell if the name change was a good move. For Electrical Safety First to be deemed successful, it will need to switch on to the public and provide clear and well publicised campaigns which will in turn see them becoming known as the 'go to' charity for information on all aspects of electrical safety in the home.
Following the release later on this year of a single electricians register as well as the new brand Electrical Safety First, it will be over to the public to determine if these moves have a positive effect on public awareness of electrical safety.

News Categories

Exclusive Industry News, electrical safety council, Electrical Safety First