Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
During the severe drought of 2009/2010 in Southern California, it was critically important to convince people throughout the state that we had a water shortage problem and to use less water.
It’s hard to get people to really think about the water they use… and then reduce consumption. Even in a crisis, there was a strong sense of entitlement because we’ve had virtually unlimited water for 100 years. And it’s often difficult for people to believe that they can individually make a difference in solving a statewide problem.
Our “Be Waterwise” campaign brought the water shortage problem to Californians on their own terms. We showed many small, specific, easy-to-do actions which an individual could take to use less water. And, instead of citing macro-statistics, we created simple, clear demonstrations of the shortage by using computer-generated images and other techniques.
Monthly visits to Bewaterwise.com rose nearly 200% while pages viewed on the site increased 210%. Respondents who saw the online advertising were 63% more likely to reduce household water usage during the next 6 months – and 320% more likely to have seen or heard of Bewaterwise.com.