Water Corporation - Stay Waterwise WA

Problem

The winter of 2015 was unseasonably dry. The little water that made it into the dams was swiftly evaporated in the spring due to the season’s record-breaking high temperatures. No amount of predictive modelling could foresee the drastic change in climate. Without immediate action, and an urgent call to save water, we could have had a crisis on our hands. From this the Drop 2 campaign was born – asking customers primarily to reduce two minutes off their sprinkler systems running time.

By the end of Water Corporation’s Drop 2 campaign, the Perth community successfully saved 12.16 billion litres of water by implementing small changes to their homes and gardens.

The thing is, when you ask a community to make changes, sometimes you get questions back. Many of the questions Water Corporation were facing interrogated their planning for the future.

Water Corporation have been planning for the future for decades and putting measures in place to secure WA’s water for the future. The information is readily available to any customer who seeks it however, unless you’re curious, you may not be aware of the work which has been underway.

From an environmental perspective, Perth has an increasingly dry climate. Any form of dramatic and unpredictable change in climate such as that experienced last year, following an unforeseen increase in water demand requires the community to pitch in to reduce the demand to meet predicted modelling, and to maintain the balance in the supply and demand of our precious water resource.

This meant that the problem was two-pronged – Water Corporation needed the community to trust that plans to secure water for the future were active and ongoing through various projects, which included reducing Perth’s reliance on its decreasing rainfall and thus inflow into dams. In addition, the community needed to continue their efforts to reduce their water use.

Solution

Many members of the Perth community had already put measures in place to reduce their water use. We wanted to encourage this behaviour to continue and also galvanise the rest of the community to join in by encouraging the social norm with a declaration:

Stay Waterwise WA!

The campaign was split into two focuses – long term planning and demand management.

Long term planning served to educate the community on Water Corporation’s current and planned activities to secure WA’s water for the future. While demand management served to give customers different actions they could take to save water around the home and garden.

Idea/Execution

We wanted to give Water Corporation a human face. This was achieved by leveraging the equity established by the Drop 2 campaign’s main character and introducing an entire family, as well as various community groups, to expand on the story.

The campaign had an integrated approach and was deployed across television, radio, press, out of home, online advertising and social media. The campaign also utilised owned channels such as customer communications and the Water Corporation website.

Responsive campaign messages were tailored not just to prevailing weather conditions, but also specifically to customer audiences to increase message relevance and further encourage engagement.