According to the United Nations report, Turkey was at risk of becoming water poor by 2030. And today, the tangible results of the impending danger became visible for each of us as it impacts our own hometowns. The lakes that hosted our memories became dried up. Still, people were waiting for an external solution to this problem while they continue to waste 57 liters of water in each wash by pre-rinsing the dishes. It was a must to remind them that the solution they were expecting was themselves.

The brief was to remind this fact to the people. By just stopping pre-rinsing can they make a huge contribution to the water problem.

Our objective was to convince as many people as possible to stop them to pre-rinse, and create an awareness on impending drought.

Turkey was a very rich country for its beautiful lakes. Almost every city had one or two lakes near it. However, in last 60 years 80 lakes dried up. We can say nearly every “hometown” lost a lake. And in Turkey “hometown” means more than a place one was born. It’s part of one’s character.

Our idea was to draw people’s attention to upcoming drought by focusing on hometowns. We use Kivanc Tatlitug, Turkish supercelebrity. He is a native of Adana, a city which lost its beautiful lakes. He was someone who has the sorrow of losing lakes that host his memories. So, we carried his own story to our commercial film to create empathy and come up with an integrated campaign around it.

In Turkey, “hometown” means more than the city of birth. It reveals your character. Saying “I am from Adana” says a lot about personality and identity. If our hometown gets destroyed, the things that make us ourselves disappear too. Based on this, in the fourth year of our movement, we worked on "Turkey's Water" campaign with the sense of hometown. Although the words could make our voices heard, it was a must to give people a story they could relate to in order to get them act. A candid story that removes the brand, product and advertisement. To create empathy in the audience, we collaborated with a celebrity who is identified with water and afraid of losing his childhood hometown: Kivanç Tatlitug.

We used an integrated approach: A news block on major TV channels, long version of TV commercial on VOD platform as a content, hometown memories from acclaimed columnists…

The campaign is kicked off with the world's first newsblock. Newscasters on all major channels drew attention to the threat of drought. And then, in the commercials, Kivanç Tatlitug took the audience on a cinematic, nostalgic journey with a 2-minute movie which was his own story as a native of Adana. In the movie, Kivanç Tatlitug returned to the lake where he spent his childhood, and there he encountered a very different landscape than he had expected: a droughty ground like in many parts of Turkey. “We are the solution,” he said. Other celebrities participated in our campaign from various channels and mediums with their hometowns. The product-free version of our commercial film was featured on Gain (a Turkish video on demand platform). Thereby it became the the first content provided by a streaming platform, which created by a brand. Then millions joined with their own stories on social media.

-Hashtag of the campaign #ZamanSuGibi became Trending Topic on Twitter within minutes.

-Reached 41% of the target audience on the first day.

-The number of visitors to YarininSuyu.com (translation: WaterForTomorrow.com) increased 25 times.

-Conversation on drought increased by 6,000%.

-Hand dishwashing decreased by 3%

-Totally 6 million people joined and 25 million households stopped pre-rinsing.