SA Water

From flushing to blushing, a behavioural change campaign to get minds out of the gutter and into the sewer.

The Brief

Drawing attention to undesirable flushing and rinsing behaviours to create change.

After a successful campaign in 2018 saw SA Water’s “Three Ps” jingle, by Fuller, on radio programs around the nation, SA Water returned to Fuller in 2022 to produce a follow-up campaign that would “extend and refresh” its popular Healthy Sewers (Three Ps) creative.

While the goal of the previous campaign was to highlight the three things that should be flushed down a toilet (paper, pee, or poo), the refreshed campaign was to focus on the things that should not be flushed or rinsed – with the goal of educating South Australians about the part they play in ensuring the state’s sewers remain healthy, functional and sustainable, and ultimately changing behaviour.

Focusing specifically on sewer blockages and overflows caused by sanitary items, wet wipes, and condoms, as well as problematic “fatbergs” caused by rinsing oils and food down the drain, SA Water provided Fuller with a full list of “undesirable” items found in the sewer system, to highlight the extent, and absurdity, of the issue.

Services Provided
 Design & Motion Graphics, Creative Campaigns, Insights & Strategy
Strategy

Working in collaboration with SA Water’s media agency, Wavemaker, to meet the behavioural change remit, Fuller developed a series of strong, headline-driven key messages that would support and amplify Wavemaker’s media recommendations.

Rather than telling people what “not” to do – which may result in the opposite effect – the messaging focussed on shining a light on undesirable behaviours, by calling them out publicly, and showing that private actions have public impacts.

A series of campaign headlines for each focus area, “we know what you're flushing” and “we know what you’re rinsing”, spoke directly to the customer by listing individual names, suburbs, and undesirable behaviours, along with a solution-driven call to action to, “put it in the bin, South Australia”.

This overarching messaging was the inspiration behind two animated digital videos, created for distribution via Meta, Snapchat and YouTube, featuring custom-illustrated animated icons and an original jingle written and produced by Fuller, targeting both “flushing” and “rinsing” behaviours. The more pointed consumer “call-out” messaging was rolled out on bus backs and public toilet doors, and via Meta, YouTube and News Limited banner ads.

Results

After three months in-market the Healthy Sewers behavioural change campaign has already started to impact consumer behaviour, with SA Water reporting a noticeable decrease in sewer blockages caused by wet wipes, oils and fats.

In terms of digital performance, the campaign over-delivered in every way.

  • 2.6M

    The Snapchat campaign was a standout when it came to impressions, with over 78K unique users seeing the ads at a very high average frequency of 33 times per person – or a total of 2.6 million impressions.

  • 4.3M

    Meta advertising led to over 4.3M impressions from 624K unique users who each saw the campaign, on average, around 7 times while scrolling Facebook and Instagram. Notably, the strongest reach across Meta was from females in the 25-34 age group, which were one of the key target audiences for this campaign.

  • 304K

    YouTube delivered the campaign to over 72K unique users at an average frequency of 2 views per user, or a total of over 144K impressions, while News Corp was also successful in delivering the campaign to 139K unique users with a total of around 160K impressions and a number of website visits.

  • 352

    The outdoor ads also received broad attention on social media, with viral Instagram account Just Adelaide Things sharing the “Angie from Aberfoyle Park” bus back on their popular feed, garnering 352 comments – many of which supported or praised the campaign.