Proposed Title: Innovative Methods for Assessing Energy Efficiency Behavioural Changes caused by Social Marketing Messages

Description As a social marketing programme, Flex Your Power aims to raise California residents' awareness on the impact of their household's energy use on climate change primarily, through mass media messaging. In the California marketplace, Flex Your Power is one of several mass media campaigns competing for the attention of California residents. Currently, Californians are exposed to a number of mass media messages taking on the issue of global warming and energy efficiency. This messaging takes multiple forms, from the recent launch of other social marketing campaigns such as Al Gore's 'We' campaign and the Environmental Defense Fund's 'Fight Global Warming', to an influx of 'green' corporate messaging such as Pacific Gas and Electric's 'We can do it' energy efficiency public relations campaign. Charged with the task of evaluating the Flex Your Power programme's impact to energy savings, Opinion Dynamics Corporation has to assess the effects of the Flex Your Power Campaign within this complex marketplace. We ask: in a marketplace with multiple programmes targeting the same audience with similar messages, how can we accurately determine the impact of the singular Flex Your Power effort? This paper outlines innovative methods and technologies that Opinion Dynamics Corporation has employed to enumerate and examine the impact of competing influences on participants' energy efficiency behaviour. We will discuss our use of quasi-experimental methods, such as structural equation modeling, and cutting edge technologies such as Integrated Media Measurement, Inc.'s (IMMI) cellphone observation technology, and the multiple methods employed to holistically evaluate the programmes' success. Evaluation Utilising the framework of the National Social Marketing Centre's Benchmark Criteria and best practices in evaluation, this paper outlines how our use of innovative methods combined with tried and true evaluation techniques work synergistically to assess the impact of Flex Your Power's programme messaging in a highly