For part of my third year at university we have been asked to write a post about a CIPR Pride awards winner and the one I chose to do was Thames Water Press Offices 'Bin it-Dont Block it' campaign. They won gold for both best use of media relations and best campaign with a budget of 10k and under.
Let me discribe the campaign to you then I will invite any comments on the issue.
Every year 55,000 blockages are caused by people in the Thames Valley region flushing or washing unsiutable waste down their toilets or sinks, this results in at least 7,000 homes and gardens being flooded, this has huge financial implications for Thames Water (£12m in fact) and is a serious problem for the whole country. The message that people should stop flushing unsuitable things down their toilets is a tired, old and boring one and the big task for Thames Water press office was to convey the message in a creative and innovative way, with a very limited budget.
The campaigns objectives were as follows:
- To devise a fresh new campaign on an age old problem to run over six months
- To develop an online presence (embracing social media)
- To maximise campaign cooverage whilst avoiding repetition
- To use traditional PR tecniques with no marketing budget
Thames Water conducted a survey and found that 41% of their customers flush unsuitable products down toilets and sinks, so the campaign had to change peoples attitudes and encourage them to change their behaviour.
The campaign used a series of 'hits' in which to unroll the campaign, in the first hit they coined the term 'Sewer Abuse' which would go on to be used widely by the media, they sent out a news release and held a photocall in London sewers and manholes which was attended by ITV, The Press Association and BBC1 South. they teamed up with 'Grime fighters' to do a five part series which attracted five million viewers per episode.
The second hit was rathermore organic and used subtle humour the engage the audience; In December 2009 they used a handycam to film the ‘flushers’ singing ‘This Christmas think of Sewermen’ to the tune of ‘God rest ye merry gentlemen’ whilst wearing Christmas hats, this video was posted on YouTube and much to the surprise of Thames Water, was picked up by ITV and re-filmed. The film appeared on BBC Breakfast as well as other prime time shows which demonstrates excellent media relations and in my opinion shows an innovative idea.
This video was backed up by ‘Flushers’ blogs and after sending celebrities down the Sewers to experience what the ‘Flushers’ do, they too wrote blogs about the subject.
Finally, the third hit involved BBC1 London and BBC Newsround filmed the sewers underneath Leicester Square (which are the worst in the country) which was followed by a photocall and news release respectively.
The results were outstanding and whilst gaining an incredible amount of coverage Thames Water still managed to keep the budget down to £280, just £250 for photography and £30 for Christmas hats!
What I would like to know is do you think it deserved to win GOLD for both best use of media relations? Or 10k and under? Or both? I think it deserved both but is it sustainable? Could the same idea be used next year? Do you think they should have measured people’s attitudes and actions AFTER the campaign to see if it was succesful?
I welcome your comments!
I really like the campaign idea of moving away from something thats boring and tiring to something much more uplifting. I think it deserved gold because of how well it communicated across so many media channels without actually having to spend any money on it!
ReplyDeleteI don't think it won just because of its great use of budget and media..but because it really connected with the audience like the singing and the fact it was done with a normal hand cam..makes people realise these are just normal everyday people with quite a hard job already without having us clogging up the gutters and making their job worse.
I can't really see it being very sustainable though unless they took a whole different approach and did films in peoples houses instead of the gutters or something like that! Also they could concentrate on the use of celebs going in the sewers and reporting live ...maybe the I'm a celeb lot would be up for it!
Yeah thats a good idea Ines, maybe they could also do a different song every year, or as Jenna suggested they could do a sewerman calendar!
ReplyDeleteI like some of the ideas that we came up with during the focus group, such as changing the song each year and the calendar as this would continue the campaign into the future without having to invest much more time into a new campaign.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is never going to end, so something that can continue each year will remind people and highlight the problem once again.
The campaign deserved both awards but I think the £10K and under more than media relations as their lack of budget was most impressive! The fact they divided their tactics into 'hits' was also interesting.
I think the campaign did deserve gold as it reached the target audience using a number of different creative techniques.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that I would say about the campaign is that I am not sure that you can really measure the success, because although they reached the target audience with the key messages they need to actually change behaviour and they have not measured if this change of behaviour has taken place.
I think that considering what the campaign was about (waste and nasty things being flushed where it shouldnt be!!) they did really well to gain the amount of publicity and reaching its target audience, as i'm sure this topic isnt something that a lot of people want to hear about or see. It shows that the campaign worked really well to get its message across, and like Ines said, they communicated to a variety of media channels, particularly those as big as the BBC... and because of this i think it definitely deserved its gold award x
ReplyDeleteIf the goal was to change behaviour, then they needed to measure awareness before and after. Grossing people out about sewers is good for attracting attention, but the real test is whether it actually changed behaviour. To me, the jury is out on that front. For media relations, however, I think it did deserve a gold, because it was an amazing amount of coverage they achieved.
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting question - is it sustainable, because I think they could have measured the campaign more effectively to start with, meaning they could have got a better insight into the actual success of what they did. Their ultimate goal was to raise awareness, but also to change behaviour I would have thought.
ReplyDeleteThey did a great job raising awareness, achieving loads of coverage! But it strikes me as something I would see, was shocked about – especially seeing the pictures! But I would then forget about it by next Christmas - washing oil away again, meaning the problem continues.
I think that despite this they definitely deserved a gold award, because they used such a small budget and still achieved a lot of awareness through loads of media coverage!
I love their term ‘sewer abuse’ it was a clever ‘slogan’ so to speak, simple yet affective.
I think it can be sustainable if they build on its success leading up to Christmas year on year. For instance leading up to next Christmas they can run a similar campaign but do different things like we talked about in the group – a Christmas calendar with all the drain men in their ‘sexy’ drain men/Christmas out fits! That would cause a stir! (I use the term sexy lightly, in a joke sense – each to their own though!) It would keep the fun element to the campaign and give people something to talk about while being festive!
I think it's probably pretty difficult to take something that nobody really wants to talk about and bring it out into the public eye and make people actually want to engage with rather than just turn away and pretend it doesn't happen. I have to agree with Cahterine though, it depends how you want to rate it.
ReplyDeleteAs a campaign that clearly got a huge amount of very good media attention with a very small budget it was amazing. But are singing sewermen really going to get you to stop putting fat down your sink? Maybe not!
I think the media coverage that they got considering they had no budget was realy good. By adding the christmas element to the campaign they took a boring issue of sewage and waste and added an element of 'fun' and 'humour' which I think was really effective in getting peoples attention but whether it would have actually got people to stup flashing waste that they shouldn't I don't know. I also think the ideas we came up with in the focus group of doing a different song every year would be a great way of carrying on the campaign.
ReplyDeleteTo achieve those results with such a small cost is a great achievement! But they definitely should have stepped up their game on the evaluation front. If they wanted to change attitudes and behaviour, they should have tested this before and after. They definitely missed a trick there.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, the tactics they used were brilliant. Viral videos are becoming more and more popular and are really working!
As for sustainability, they will definitely have to come up with some fresh ideas. It could be a good idea to further the celebrity idea. That always creates great awareness. All in all I think they did deserve the gold awards, particularly in the media relations category.
Seeing as I'm a second year PR student at Solent, I would be very grateful if you would follow my PR blog at http://2plus2pr.blogspot.com/
This will really help me out when I'm in your position next year!
Thanks