Enercare gives its "Experts at Home" brand a new look for winter, and the experts are now made of clay.
Its latest "Comfort Days" campaign with agency GALE uses nostalgic claymation to make furnace maintenance feel like part of a cozy holiday ritual.
The national campaign runs across social, OOH, and other channels as colder weather approaches.
The 15-second hero spot follows an animated woman and her dog as a sudden breeze signals the first chill of the season.
She books an Enercare service appointment, then heads outside to meet an animated service expert who gets her home ready for winter.
"Many homeowners wait until the first cold snap to think about their furnace, which can be too late."
"Comfort Days is about changing both the timeline and the mindset," said Jenny Thompson, VP of marketing at Enercare, in press release.
The animated creative gives the brand's service expertise character without putting a technician on screen.
Enercare's Experts Get a Claymation Makeover
The agency worked with Bent Labs to develop two hero spots for "Comfort Days."
One spot opens with a narrator declaring, "There it is. The season's first chill."
A gust of cold air sends a fall leaf flying into a dog's face on a couch with its owner.
In a second spot, the narration opens to a family sitting down at breakfast as a cold breeze ices over the dad's coffee.
"The weather is starting to feel frosty," the voiceover says.
In both spots, the homeowner immediately books an Enercare appointment and meets their service expert outside.
The claymation world uses knitted textures, glowing fireplaces, cozy slippers, and other holiday cues.
The visual language recalls classic seasonal television while keeping the service action simple.
GALE MD Jason McCann said the campaign focused on the payoff of preparation, including:
"A warm house, a hot coffee, and the frost on the other side of the glass.
"'Comfort Days' is what the season feels like when you're actually ready for it"
Enercare calls itself the "Experts at Home" and cited more than 700 fully licensed technicians.
"Comfort Days" gives this service promise a physical character, making expertise part of the campaign's entertainment.
Home Heating Is a Massive Seasonal Need
The U.S. Energy Information Administration found that 42% of U.S. households used electricity as their main heating fuel in 2024.
Natural gas remained the largest source at 47%.
The split shows why home-heating brands need product messaging that can address different technologies and regional needs.
The 2024 Residential Energy Consumption Survey covered 132.5 million U.S. primary residences.
This gives the home-heating category a huge potential audience.
EIA collected the data from nearly 17,000 households across all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Three lessons stand out for brands marketing seasonal home services.
- Seasonality can create a natural action window. Brands should connect maintenance to the arrival of winter, to give routine services a timely reason to enter consideration.
- Heating needs vary by region. Marketers should account for differences in climate and heating technology to keep messaging relevant across the U.S.
- The service category reaches a huge installed base. Brands should use comfort to make technical services easier for homeowners to understand and act on.
The opportunity sits in making an ordinary maintenance task feel relevant before homeowners have an urgent reason to call.
Our Take: Why Are Brands Returning to Claymation?
Claymation is becoming a useful way to make familiar advertising feel handmade again.
Enercare uses the format to recreate the warmth of classic holiday television.
Similarly, E.ON Next brought back Bob the Builder in his original stop-motion form for a new clean-energy campaign.
But the appeal comes with a catch.
Claymation takes physical production, time, and specialist craft, so the format needs a strong reason to exist in a campaign.
The timing suggests brands are using visible craftsmanship as part of the creative idea and to maintain a human element.
With AI making polished animation easier to produce, physical texture can give a commercial a more tangible identity.
Brands exploring tactile animation can work with a top animation company to give a familiar idea a distinctive visual treatment.
