How did Iluméxico find a scalable model to drive its social proposal?
Some 1.8 Mexicans have no electricity at home. Their remote, hard-to-access locations push them to the margins of the traditional national electricity grid. With the mission of catalyzing these communities’ growth, Iluméxico was born committed to offering a clean and dependable energy model using installed solar panels. Despite the market opportunity, Iluméxico did not end up connecting with users. Instead it confronted ever-slower sales and difficulties holding on to current clients as well as with capturing new markets.
Take a walk in their shoes
To develop a user-centric solution, we undertook a complete immersion exercise in four of the most representative communities where Iluméxico was doing business. We learned about and experienced firsthand needs and narratives from both community residents as well as engineers charged with panel promotion and maintenance services. It led us to make three important discoveries.
In the first place, access to electricity was not a priority in communities. Secondly, paying for the panel required customers’ weekly or monthly commute to the POS, which greatly increased the product’s final costs. The third discovery was that, beyond the functional need to access electricity, the motivation for many inhabitants was to belong—or be connected—to Mexico.
Connect to the other Mexico
With these insights, we put together a commercialization and experience strategy based on archetype designs; in other words, user and client profiles. We defined value-propositions in which we explained the benefits of electricity and Iluméxico panels. We produced sales-scripts according to different markets and segments. To improve the experiences of Iluméxico users, we set up points-of-sale that at the same time fulfill a mission of being community centers for meeting up and connecting.
Iluméxico works here
To potentialize a sense of belonging between clients and the brand, as well as “the Mexico grid,” we developed a visual identity in partnership with the Ariel Rojo design studio. We produced signage that read “house, school or business illumined by Iluméxico” that served as a mechanism for reinforcing community and connection. We created the “Ilutroka” (i.e., “the illumitruck”) a multifunctional sedan SUV designed to explore new markets, facilitate users paying for their panels as well as offering maintenance service and use-level or commercial administration training on Iluméxico.
100,000 happy users
During our consultancy, Iluméxico didn’t just light 10,000 residences two years ahead of schedule but also raised significant foreign investment to expand its operations. To date, Iluméxico services have benefit more than 100,000 users, demonstrating that with strategic vision and clear lines of action, any project’s success is possible.