Tonight in Peterborough, Anglian Water launched one of the world’s leading examples of corporate social marketing or how to work with customers to achieve real behaviour change and measurable social results.

Their Keep It Clear campaign is aimed to change the behaviours of what people put down sinks and toilets. Putting waste in water causes 15,000 blockages a year at a cost of over £7m.

The campaign was created following a rigorous step by step process. Evidence was gathered on the primary material streams that were put into water pipes. Principle areas and neighbourhoods which had repeat blockages were identified. Customer segments were identified and research identified current knowledge, beliefs, behaviours and motivators. Interventions were designed to make it easy for customers to act.

The two priority areas for action were identified as food service establishments putting fats, oils and greases into the water cycle and domestic customers flushing sanitary waste and wipes.

The result was a pilot in Peterborough that in pre and post research, showed the following results:
- the number of people at home who were concerned about blockages rose from 69% to 100%
- the number of people saying they were making an extra effort to get rid of waste appropriately rose from 51% to 72%
- the percentage agreeing that reducing blockages is a shared responsibility rose from 52% to 92%

Among food service establishments (restaurants, fast food outlets etc…) there was also real progress. The number saying they scraped plates before washing rose 25% to 98%. The percentage saying they now use sanitary protection signs in their loos rose by 13% to 73%.

But the real measure of success is whether there are now less blockages. Our original conviction was that it could take up to a year or more to see a reduction. In practice, the average number of weekly blockages in the pilot scheme area reduced from 3.3 a week to 1.16.

Why is the campaign important? There are three reasons:
1. It is one of the world’s first campaigns to use social marketing principles in the private sector
2. It is, in my view, a game-changer in utilities; it adds customer behaviour change to the universe of strategies to tackle real issues (in addition to capital investment and fixing problems)
3. It once again shows that customers are inclined to act; but there is a need for strategies and interventions that make it easy for them to do so

One more thing, the regional launch event featured what I believe to be the world premiere of the use of something called projection mapping in a behaviour change campaign. It is just one of many interventions but it is a cracking way to use technology and I will tell you more in a separate blog. The website is www.keep-it-clear.co.uk where you will also find an innovative use of Facebook data to create personal tips for you to value water and love every drop.

Click here to view the spectacular projection mapping event.