A multi-layered media strategy including weather targeting to a complex geographical footprint

The South and South East regions of England are officially water stressed. Climate change and the ever-growing population are affecting how much water is available. Southern Water have devised a programme to encourage customers to reduce their daily water use from 127 to 100 litres per person by 2045. They aim to initiate a lasting change in their customer’s usage habits.

The objective Southern Water set us was to build awareness of water scarcity and the need to use water more wisely.  This should lay the foundation for customers to start to view water as a precious resource and think about the water they are using.

Southern Water have a complex geographical footprint including disparate households across East and West Sussex, Kent, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.  We needed to consider their customer’s postcodes within these counties and the requirement to upweight more stressed areas and exclude control areas, so the geotargeting of media for this brief is challenging.

The success of the campaign was measured in terms of an uplift in prompted campaign awareness, and an increase in those claiming they are taking steps to reduce their water consumption.

Target Audience

To reach all Southern Water customers within a defined list of postcodes, with the additional consideration of upweighting water stressed areas and excluding control areas.

Furthermore Southern Water identified 4 key audience personas for us to target: Time Poor & Receptive, Savvy & Settled, Careful & Traditional and Conscientious & Concerned.

These audiences skewed towards an older demographic but with key differentiators between them, such as family status and income threshold, which would inform our media strategy and selection.

Our Approach

Our media strategy included 3 layers to achieve the campaigns objectives:

1. Postcode targeted media was used to pinpoint our customer’s households with channels such as BVOD, OOH and digital
2. Radio and print were planned to cost efficiently reach Southern Water’s large customer base and ensure all customer groups, including their older personas, were exposed to the campaign
3. Over Summer months, seasonally relevant creative was only live during warm and dry weather conditions, utilising 3rd party technology solutions and partners with these capabilities.

The postcode targeted media selection included a TV ad which was booked with BVOD partners, including ITV, Sky and Channel 4, plus AVOD suppliers, including Amazon, Samsung, Pluto & Rakuten. A shorter edit of the video was also targeted by postcode and audience personas across YouTube and Meta.

OOH was placed in the target postcodes including upweights to water stressed areas, with a mix of roadside, bus and rail environments, plus ticket gateways at Southampton Central station.

Other postcode targeted media included an audio ad across digital audio, programmatic display banners and PPC.

Activity was initially soft launched on Programmatic and Meta to test the campaign messaging which informed the decision to promote:

• Teeth brushing with the tap off
• Shower for 2 minutes less
• Run a full wash load
• Swap the hose for a watering can
• Reuse padding pool water to water the garden
• Switch to Eco Mode on your dishwasher

To improve cost efficiency and to ensure that older audiences had sufficient exposure to the campaign, we planned linear radio and local newspapers. Linear radio offers very cost-efficient reach and has much lower CPTs than digital audio, so we carefully selected radio stations with no or only minimal wastage to the target postcodes, such as IOW Radio, Capital and Heart.  Print ads were also booked with local newspapers in areas where the population indexes older or water stressed areas.

Southern Water were particularly excited about the addition of a weather targeted campaign as previous research revealed that their advertising is more effective when the weather is good. We worked with third party suppliers to activate select media channels including BVOD, AVOD, digital audio, YouTube and Meta, only when the weather hit certain conditions i.e. warm weather with no rain. Agile campaign management allowed us to flexibly manage budgets between channels to maximise effectiveness.

The Results

Brand tracking research showed a significant increase in brand perception for Southern Water customers that have seen the campaign versus those that have not. A 75% uplift in campaign recognisers for those that agree Southern Water are ‘actively trying to help my household be more environmentally aware when it comes to water usage’ versus non campaign recognisers, and 30% uplift on those that agree ‘in the last 3 months I have taken active steps to reduce my water use’.

At the end of the campaign, awareness of water scarcity and confidence that customers know what action to take was at the highest it has been across a 12 month period. In addition, when assessing campaign recall on topics seen, heard or read related to Southern Water, ‘water efficiency’ saw the largest difference between campaign recognisers and non-campaign recognisers.

TV and social media lead the way as the main source of awareness, reflective of investment across the campaign.