According to the UN reports Turkey will be a water poor country by 2030. Yet, people waste like there is no tomorrow.

Three years ago, Finish, the dishwasher detergent, started a water preservation campaign. Initially, the aim was to eradicate hand dishwash and pre rinsing. Although dishwasher penetration rate is 80% in Turkey, 50% of the consumers pre-rinse their dishes, wasting 57 liters in every cycle. The consistent communication of the brand made it the number one ambassador of water preservation. Thus the brand went beyond dishwashing habits and started communicating on all areas of needless water consumption. One key barrier in habit change was people’s perception of water as an infinite, cheap resource, making them take it for granted and hence use it without precaution or care.

In our third year of water preservation campaign, we wanted to put water saving on every single person’s agenda.

Water is the most undervalued resource. Currencies, stocks and oil is nothing compared to the value of a water. And until now, there was no attempt to show water’s true value.

With the help of the well-respected Turkish Industrial and Development Bank (TSKB) we created an index which shows the value of water: Finish Water Index.

Reserves, forecasts, industrial, agricultural and domestic consumption all go into a weekly computed formula. The figure quantifies water availability (and thus its value) on a scale where below 70 is draught and above 130 is abundance. The index was inserted into every medium where the values of financial assets are demonstrated daily.

The problem was water saving is not a habit and the water issue is not in our agenda. However, Turkey will be a water poor country in near future. And yet people waste water like there is no tomorrow.

Having surrounded by seas and the fact that earth consists of 74% of water creates an illusion. Despite these figures, only the fraction of water is usable. Just 0.006% of it.

We wanted the amount of water to be tracked by people like currencies or gold.

With the help of Turkish Industrial Development Bank (TSKB), we created Finish Water Index. Reserves, forecasts, industrial, agricultural and domestic consumption all go into a regularly computed and weekly updated formula.

As the index takes its place in our lives, we will understand the value of water better.

First, we locate Finish Water Index logo and its value beside Dollar and Euros in every single platform. Most watched news channels like CNN Turk and Bloomberg, economy programs, popular newspapers like Haber Türk and Sabah, web sites like Milliyet.

Then we explain the situation briefly in our TV commercials, print ads and billboards. With these we claimed that “for the first time we will know the true value of the water”.

Next, with influencers and YouTubers we explain Finish Water Index and upcoming drought with all the details.

As the index become popular and be part of our daily life, the conversation on scarcity and consumption increased.

Finish Water Index has reached 27 million people on TV.

The monthly reach is 25 million via the widgets on the news web sites.

After its launch the conversation on water scarcity has increased by 121%.

Among the people who have seen Finish Water Index, the water consumption has decreased by 9%.

The number of visitors of campaign web site yarininsuyu.com (tomorrow’s water) has increased by 600%.

The “Top of Mind” (TOM) score of Finish increased by 4 points. Finish overthrew its competitor and became the leader in TOM score.

Upon government request the local versions of index are being prepared.

USA, Australia and Italy are adopting the index.