Energy Audit or Assessment? Which Term WINS?

Energy Upgrade California Sells Energy Assessments... What are CA Homeowners Buying?

At a hearing last week at the CEC there was a comment and commendation related to calling Energy Audits, Energy Assessments.  This branding decision was made by the EUC marketing consultants early on, and has been core to the EUC branding effort (at least $30M spent to date).

So the question is... What are homeowners thinking about?  Assessments or Audits?

Here is a live embed from google that shows what people in California are searching for:

This has been an ongoing debate.  I tend to agree that the term audit has some potentially negative connotations.  However, I also think that rebranding a term that is widely understood and in the public mind is very costly.  In CA we just spent the most money we may ever have to rebrand Energy Audits as Energy Assessments... and based on google statistics, we don't seem to have moved the vernacular needle.

Is it time to go back to "energy audit" as the term of art for what we do, and instead of rebranding the name as an Assessment - which does not apear to be catching on.  Perhaps we should own the Energy Audit and make sure when people hear the term they stop thinking of the IRS and instead think of being in a cozy, healthy, and efficient home.