A documentary about water depletion was shot with a sponsorship by Finish as part of the ‘Finish Water Sustainability’ campaign. Because this piece is not a usual communication item but one in the entrainment sector, we would like to be assessed under this category.

Historically Finish focused on product driven performance communication but keeping our leadership in the hearts of our consumers and consequently in terms of market share required a communication that had the power to create an emotional bond through building a new purpose for the brand. We tied the brand’s core value “shine” to the purpose of the brand and came up with the concept of a “brighter future”.

We did a comprehensive research with IPSOS to understand what the ‘brighter feature’ means for our target audience. What we found was, they really want their children to live a better life than the life they have had.

But the fact is- A worse feature is on the table for their children. Daily water consumption per person is 70 liters in Turkey. If we continue to consume this much water, the water resources are in danger of depletion.

Believing in our perfect product performance, we decided to ask our target audience not to pre-rinse and thus save 57lt of water in every washing for their children for a brighter feature. But that was simply not enough for the target audience who do not take the water shortage problem seriously.

Any claim made on this issue needs to be backed by a reliable authority. That is why we chose to cooperate with National Geographic. The end result was a documentary underlining the scientific truths based on what has been happening in South Africa accompanied by a fictitious water scarcity scenario in 2030 Istanbul.

With the synchronized narration of these two-stories, we wanted to highlight the scientific facts and challenge the perception of “it never happens to me” in this county.

We also used two celebrities to enlarge the reach effect of the documentary.

Turkey is a country surrounded by seas on three sides and experiencing all four seasons. When this is the case, it’s unimageable for a target audience that the water resources are running out.

To increase the awareness and credibility of ‘water resources are in danger’ message, we needed the help of a reliable authority and more reliable content than ordinary advertising to support our core communication message which is ‘If we continue to consume water this way, the resources are in danger of extinction’. We chose to work with one of the most credible authorities for sustainability, National Geographic and cooperate with them to create non-commercial content.

National Geographic would not enough to reach the mass audience and create awareness about this serious fact. So, we partnered with one of the most seen TV channels FOX TV. And broadcasted the documentary on it on prime time.

1 million dollars earned media.