The home heating oil industry has a long and proud history, and Fuel Oil News has been there supporting it since 1935. It is an industry that has faced many challenges during that time. In its 77th year, Fuel Oil News is doing more than just holding
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20 JANUARY 2016 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com BUSINESS OPERATIONS A fter a hiatus of six years, the Propane Education & Research Council is back in the consumer education business in a big way. The Council's 2016 budget for consumer education is nearly $10 million. PERC's consumer education authority was restored in 2015 after a six-year restriction triggered by a Commerce Department price analysis in 2009. "We are now free to resume that consumer education work, which for our purposes means talking with the general consumer audience about the generic benefits of propane," said Gregg Walker, director of com- munications for the Council, based in Washington, D.C. "We're going to resume talking with consumers about all of the ways propane can help them save money, cut emissions and take part in a wider movement to increase American energy security and independence," Walker said. "But the way we talk about it may change. So many things have changed since August of 2009"—when the Council complied with the DOC restriction. "Any messages we use in our new consumer education cam- paign will be driven by data," Walker said. "We have a research project underway now and we'll be working with our strategic partners to develop messages that work. But it's almost certain they will be different messages from what we were using six, seven, eight, nine years ago because so many things have changed." Since 2009, approximately 40 new propane-fueled products have come onto the market, Walker said. "This is equipment of various kinds"—appliances, school buses and other vehicles, commercial mowers—"that now runs on propane and is expanding the market. So we've got those things to talk with consumers about." Walker added, "We also have a very different energy environ- ment now." Propane production has risen so sharply in recent years that the United States is now the world's lead- ing producer and exporter of propane, he said. "We always thought of it as a clean, American fuel, but now we can say that with a lot of confidence because America makes more than enough pro- pane to meet domestic demand." After its market research is completed, in February, the Council plans a short turnaround during which to develop the consumer education messages: a month or two, so that the program can launch in April. Meanwhile, other long-running programs will continue, including outreach to the residential and commercial market, budgeted at $2.16 million. The program is targeted at residential and commercial builders, and plumbers and HVAC technicians; it is designed to provide information they need to specify and install PERC Aims to Educate Consumers A research-based consumer education program is scheduled to launch in spring 2016 CONSUMER EDUCATION The NORA board authorized an expenditure of approximately $1 million, most of it "leftover funds from pre-2010" for an outreach campaign using the Web, Huber said. "We have been working on a plan for all our NORA states to provide customers information about our product," Huber said. Ensuring that search tools find the information is one focus, and pop-up ads will be an element of the campaign too. That effort will be integrated with the oilheatamerica website. The outreach campaign, launching in January, is designed "to make sure our customers understand that the industry has made some significant advancements in the last five years," Huber said. "The biofuels, renewable fuels, are obviously a much more important part of our product today, and they'll be growing in importance as we go forward." Additionally, "the economics of our product are much bet- ter than they used to be," Huber said. "The price has dropped." Trumpeting that good news will be part of the consumer edu- cation effort, a digital media campaign using Facebook, home improvement, green living sites and other online venues. BY STEPHEN BENNETT