Problem: Cape Town is experiencing the worst drought in over a century. And with 80% of water being used in bathrooms, people were urged to drastically cut down their shower time to two minutes. But what they needed was a way to time their showers.

Insight: We all sing in the shower, whether we’d like to admit it or not.

Solution: We created the first ever 2minuteshowersongs album. We challenged 10 of South Africa's biggest music artists to re-work their most popular tracks into exactly 2-minutes. Locals and visitors could then press play, shower and sing along. Knowing that when the song ends so should their showers.

Our artists went back into the studio to re-write, re-orchestrate and re-record their biggest sing-along tracks to two-minute versions and released the first ever 2-Minute Shower Songs album. And every morning as Cape Town was jumping in the shower, our artists performed their songs on major TV and radio shows. The songs were also made available for free streaming and download on a specially created website and were released on every major music platform.

Perfectly timed ahead of our peak tourist season when millions of visitors would put further strain on our water supply, our fully integrated six-week campaign was rolled out through national and international media relations, tactical paid media targeted digital spend and strategic partnerships with Airbnb and City Sightseeing.

Our artists became Cape Town’s heroes, as daily water usage began to drop. While Sanlam was praised for being the driving force behind the much-needed behaviour change.

The response was immediate. Locals started singing along, and within 24 hours, the tourist industry and international community did too, with our 2-Minute Shower Songs spreading across the globe. During the campaign period, we shifted the narrative and rallied locals and visitors to play an active role in reducing their water consumption.

Measurement highlights included -

Media outputs:

• 240 million impressions

• 95% top tier media exposure

• 100% key message penetration

• 100% positive sentiment

• Earned media ROI of 310%

Target audience outcomes:

• 3.4 million positive engagements

• 1.6 million video views

• 22 694 unique website visits

• 3.24 minutes spent on site per session (average)

Business outcomes:

• Sanlam applauded by the Mayor of Cape Town for being one of the first corporates to answer the call for the private sector to get behind the fight against Day Zero

• Day Zero overcome completely

2minuteshowersongs was a PR-led campaign. It was a real-time response, a tactical idea that tapped into current affairs and the news agenda. And the core of our strategy was to leverage the influence of our music artists across earned channels through an on-target media relations programme, to create awareness and shift behaviour. Additionally, placing our primary focus on securing credible third-party endorsement and exposure from our top-tier journalists and bloggers further intended to spark online conversation and encourage public participation.

Using the celebrity status and influence of our artists was at the heart of our strategy. As the strongest opportunity to convince the public to start singing to save water, they became the faces and voices of our campaign through a strategic communications plan. And their broad appeal enabled us to capture the attention of our two target audience groups: 1. Cape Town residents and 2. Domestic and international tourists.

To ensure success, our integrated rollout made use of the full PESO model. Earned media efforts targeted regional, national and international consumer, news, lifestyle and entertainment journalists and bloggers. Which was further supported through paid partnerships with three prime time TV and radio shows. Social media conversation by our artists and their far-reaching fan base generated high engagement across shared media. While all communication worked to drive traffic to our owned platforms where the 2-Minute Shower Songs album was hosted.

Cape Town was set to be the first major city in the world to run out of water if locals and visitors didn’t reduce their water usage to the required 87 litres per person daily limit. But nobody was listening.

Sanlam – a company with a longstanding focus on water conservation – briefed us to create a hard-working campaign that would rally audiences to take action, by cutting through the noise, positively engaging the public and empowering them with a practical tool to reduce their daily water consumption.

Understanding that bathrooms account for 80% of usage, with showers using 10l p/m, getting people to shorten their shower time would have a dramatic impact.

So we tapped into the insight that people love to sing in the shower, and enlisted our ten biggest artists to re-create two-minute versions of their hits and launched the first ever 2-Minute Shower Songs album.