Nearly 20% of the world’s population lacks access to clean drinking water -- and every day more than 5,000 children die as a result. UNICEF challenged us to raise awareness of World Water Day and the global need for clean drinking water, while increasing donations to their water programmes. Our vision was to turn a free, ubiquitous product into a global brand. On World Water Day, we would brand tap water in every restaurant and bar around the world, sell it for a dollar, and direct 100% of the proceeds to UNICEF.

We chose New York as our launch city and created a simple logo that could be placed anywhere; any glass, bottle or menu. New York Tap water was our product, and the city’s top restaurants, our point-of-sale channel. Targeted pro-bono media included publications featuring personal essays from world-renowned writers, prominent homepage placements on web portals and parallel installations on Time Square’s two most prominent digital signs. But the city’s collective conscience became our most effective media vehicle. Top restaurant owners, celebrities, politicians and everyday New Yorkers came out in force to pay to drink their city’s Tap water.

For one day in all major New York City restaurants, the least expensive menu item was the most fulfilling: because one dollar can provide a child clean drinking water for 40 days. In just one day, New Yorkers generated years’ worth of clean drinking water to the world’s children in most need. UNICEF declared The Tap Project as its most successful single initiative in the organization’s 56-year history, and has committed to implementing the Tap Project in more than 100 cities globally by World Water Day, 2009.