Utility Week

26 | 31ST AUGUST - 6TH SEPTEMBER 2018 | UTILITY WEEK Customers Utility Week Awards winner case study Marketing Initiative of the Year Category sponsor: CGI Award winner: Welsh Water • Title of project/initiative: For Wales. Not for Profit • Annual company turnover: £750 million Entry criteria: • Quality of entry (clear, evidence based) • Clear, quantifiable goals set for the project that were met or exceeded • Measurable benefits for the business • Effective and clear communication with a targeted group of customers • Evidence of creativity The 2017 Utility Week Awards were held in association with CGI and Capgemini. The entry deadline is just aweek away for the 2018 Utility Week Awards; see www.utilityweekawards.co.uk/ for more details and news of this year's categories. For sponsorship opportu- nities contact Utility Week business develop ment manager Ben Hammond on benhammond@fav-house.com or 01342 332116 for more information. What the judges said... The judges said this was "a campaign that increased customer understanding to build trust and effective partnership between a business and its community". T he "For Wales. Not for Profit" cam- paign was a major awareness-build- ing initiative created by Welsh Water. It comprised two parts: a summer public engagement campaign; and an autumn/ spring Let's Stop the Block campaign. Both shared the over-arching aim of building awareness of the company's model and trust, with individual calls to action to deliver additional benefits including con- sultation engagement and Stop the Block, a campaign against sewer blockages. What was the scale of the project? The "Have your Say 2016" summer cam- paign was the most ambitious and innova- tive the company has undertaken. It was its first multi-media campaign to include TV advertising. The summer engagement element of the project was highly ambitious, giving cus- tomers a significant level of responsibility in terms of deciding where money should be spent. What was the target group? The target group for the initiative was all three million customers within the compa- ny's operating area. The key campaign objectives were meas- ured primarily through a quarterly YouGov online tracker of a 1,000+ sample in Wales. The questions tracked were: • Model awareness: What kind of com- pany are we? Not-for-profit, government- owned, shareholder-owned. • Trust. • Value for money. • Awareness of campaign ads. • Awareness of the causes of sewer blockages. Why this approach? Asking people to take part in consultations can be a challenge, according to Welsh Water, therefore "innovation and creativity" are needed to encourage them. The company's approach was to use mul- tiple channels – a website, chatbot, focus groups, stakeholder sessions and events – to make sure people were able to have their say as easily as possible. For this initiative, it decided to take its consultation out to people at events they were attending and on the social media channels they were using, as opposed to hoping that people would go to them. A multi-billion pound business plan can be difficult to explain, so story-telling and engaging videos and graphics were used to make the consultation tangible to people's everyday lives. What were the KPIs for this initiative? In the first 12 months of the campaign the company wanted to: • Increase awareness of its not-for-profit model by 5 per cent. • Increase customer trust by 3 per cent. • Increase perceptions of good value for money by 3 per cent. • Achieve 5,000 customer consultation responses (phase 1 – summer 2016). • Increase awareness of what causes block- ages (phase 2 – autumn and spring). How was creativity demonstrated? The first task was to develop an acces- sible and engaging positioning for the not-for-profit message. Welsh Water says it recognises that "not-for-profit" is quite a "corporate" phrase, which prompts the question: if not for profit, then for what? The company says its campaign needed to show customers and colleagues why it does what it does and stress that it wasn't for the ben- efit of shareholders, but for everyone. Messages included: "If not for profit, then for work. Welsh water is the life force behind some of Wales' very best products and pro- duce. If not for profit, then for play. We are custodians of some of Wales' most beautiful landscapes. If not for profit, then for living. For clean water delivered to our homes, and for wastewater seamlessly taken away. If not for profit, then for Wales." Any financial surplus is reinvested for the benefit of the communities Welsh Water Who do you think we are? Welsh Water's "For Wales. Not for Profit" campaign reinforced to customers its unique identity, and bagged the company the 2017 Utility Week Marketing Initiative of the Year Award.

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