After almost a decade of drought and what experts are calling the lowest Sierra snowpack in 500 years (that’s not a typo – five centuries), the Western states are rapidly learning what we have known all along: Water is precious. It is vital to our way of life and we can’t take its presence for granted.

When R&R first began working on water conservation efforts with the Southern Nevada Water Authority more than 20 years ago, many residents here had many misconceptions on who was using water and how it could be saved. Many thought the huge hotels in the resort corridor with their fountains and water features were the biggest users. Others named golf courses. But the fact was, and still is, that the resort corridor consumes 3 to 4 percent of our water. The truth is, in a valley of more than 2 million residents, the vast majority is used by residents − everyday people living everyday lives. Further, the vast majority of that majority is used outside, keeping trees, shrubs − and mostly, lawns − alive in our arid desert climate.

So if the residents are the people using it, we knew they’d have to be the ones who save it. Over the years, our work has shown them how. This month, we’ve introduced two new campaigns to continue the momentum we’ve built up over the years.

The first is centered on the SNWA’s Water Smart Landscaping program. It’s based on a simple premise: Lawns are the biggest single consumer of water in Las Vegas. If you want to make a significant reduction in water use, replace your thirsty grass with more water-efficient desert landscaping. And the Water Authority will actually pay you money to do it through rebates. It is a program that saves 9.6 billion gallons of water a year and has, to date, upgraded more than 172 million square feet of grass to desert landscaping.

 

 

The primary message of the campaign is simple: “Get Your Head Out of Your Grass.” Short, simple, to the point. The Water Authority certainly understands that people like their lawns. And no one is suggesting that there is no place for lawns at all. Only that if we all found a way to get along with a little less grass, the water savings can be substantial. Substantial, as in 9.6 billion gallons a year. Ordinary people, doing ordinary things.

The second campaign is a continuation of an initiative the Water Authority has undertaken for many years. The situation is thus: Summer in Las Vegas is really hot. To keep our plants and lawns alive in June, July and August, we have to set the timers on our sprinklers and irrigation systems to run very frequently (almost all Southern Nevada homes and businesses control their sprinklers with automatic timers). But once the shorter daylight hours and cooler temperatures of fall arrive, our landscaping doesn’t need as much water and residents can adjust their timers accordingly. In fact, they should.

But people are busy, and they forget. This campaign reminds them.

 

 

Very sexy, very easy, very effective. Billions of gallons saved every year with virtually no effect whatsoever on the lives of the home and business owners who do it. Ordinary people, doing ordinary things. Saving water, one gallon at a time.

That’s how, living in the middle of the Mojave Desert during the worst drought any of us has ever known, the citizens of Southern Nevada are saving more than 42.5 million gallons of water a day. It’s how we have reduced our consumption of water from 248 gallons per capita per day (GPCD) in 2008 to 118 GPCD in 2014. It’s how we’re saving water at a rate five times greater than the rate of our population growth.

That’s how we’re saving water here in the desert. And that’s how the other Western states can too − ordinary people doing ordinary things.

 

When R&R Partners was brought in to help revive a stale and scattered campaign – Utah’s “Slow the Flow, Save H2O” statewide public education message to encourage homeowners to reduce water use – our agency was asked that our strategies be research-driven and strategically focused.

We took on the project with the glass half full. We began an exhaustive review of existing research and then conducted our own, which provided key insights that inspired a radical shift in the campaign.

R&R based all of its messaging strategies and tactics on one of the most respected, evidence-based theories of social cause marketing that aims to change social norms and convert intentions to act into positive social behaviors. First, R&R created an innovative partnership with Utah’s MLS team, REAL Salt Lake, to leverage its loyal fan base of men (61%) and homeowners (82%). It was the perfect fit, with its playing season even overlapping the spring/summer advertising campaign. We created co-branded TV, radio and online ads that featured REAL players and their “Grass Whisperer” – the guy responsible for the natural lush turf. And in a nontraditional messaging twist, we also lined all of the water fountains in the stadium with artificial turf to remind fans “your pitch only needs a sip. Don’t overwater.”

We also searched for ways to have direct contact with Utahns when they were already thinking about their outdoor watering. We expanded our community partnerships to include The Home Depot. What better way to communicate to the millennial male about conserving water outdoors than at the point of decision, while he’s searching for a replacement sprinkler head? All 22 Home Depot stores across the state enthusiastically joined in the effort.

The outcome: The campaign has attained enviable awareness levels, especially for social cause initiatives, with 64 percent audience recall. And not only are people remembering the message, they’re also taking action to implement conservation behaviors.

We’re changing the game by changing the social norm, from a culture of consumption to one of conservation.

Anti-tobacco. Anti-drunk driving. Anti-underage drinking. Anti-prescription drug abuse. Anti-water waste. The list of social issues marketing goes on and on, including everything from public transit to seat-belt safety to pet spay and neuter.

Why so many social issues ad campaigns? Well, for starters, R&R stopped calling them ad campaigns a long time ago. Now, we call them what they really are − community mobilization efforts.

It takes a village to raise a perception

The secret to effective social issues marketing isn’t a secret at all. Two scholars named Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen figured it out in 1980 and named it the Theory of Reasoned Action. As an equation, the theory looks like this:

BI=(AB)W₁+(SN)W₂

In practice, it’s a lot easier to understand. Basically, it says that people’s beliefs, attitudes, intentions and behaviors don’t change in a vacuum. Every step along the way, people are looking around at what other people’s beliefs, attitudes and behaviors are, too. The more that everybody else believes or behaves a certain way, the easier it is for a person’s beliefs or behaviors to change and conform.

It makes sense. You see a billboard telling you that underage drinking impairs a teen’s brain development, and you think, “That’s interesting.” However, if you see your local bar, and supermarket, and office building, and gas station, and ski resort, and sports team, and friend all telling you to keep alcohol away from teens because it impairs proper brain development, then you’re likely to keep alcohol away from teens. Sometimes peer pressure is a good thing.

Creating win-win-win-win situations

To date, R&R Salt Lake City has created more than 230 unique community activations and partnerships for its social issues clients, ranging from cement companies putting spinning messages on the barrels of their trucks to the U.S. Ski Team wearing crushed beer can gold medals during training camp. The more unique and innovative the opportunity, the better. Three months ago, R&R built a taxidermy display of Utah’s deadliest predators at a sporting goods store, featuring a drunk driver as by far and away the most dangerous creature in the state. (We didn’t kill and stuff a drunk driver, by the way.) Stinky air fresheners, toilet bowl stickers, parade floats, billiard balls, fortune cookies, 13-foot-tall nutcrackers − they’ve all been featured as part of R&R’s social issues partnerships.

Companies and organizations like to partner on the issues because it shows them as good corporate citizens. The media likes the partnerships because they allow them to talk about important, but old and tired, issues in fresh, new ways. Our clients like the partnerships because they stretch budgets and earn free media coverage (more than $43 million), and the community benefits from the partnerships because they make positive attitude and behavior changes more likely. Everybody wins.

And speaking of winning

R&R’s social campaigns are among the most awarded and respected in America. MADD has named R&R’s underage drinking prevention efforts as the nation’s outstanding PSA campaign twice, and patterned MADD’s own national prevention efforts on R&R’s model. The American Public Transportation Association and National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse directors have officially recognized R&R’s campaigns as industry best practices, and R&R’s social issues advertising has won dozens of state, national and international creative awards.

The biggest win for R&R Partners, however, are the thousands of people leading healthier, happier and more secure lives as a result of our work.

It’s cool being anti.