Save Our Streams

Chalk streams are among the rarest habitats in the world, and most of them are in England. A good number run through Affinity Water’s patch in the South East, where customers use more water than almost anywhere else in the country. The company set a target no UK supplier had hit before: cut use by 21 million litres a day. The hard part was getting people to care about a stream they had never connected to their own tap. At Revolt we turned the problem into a movement, SOS: Save Our Streams, and gave it a very British sense of humour. Out-of-home put people in extravagant baths in the middle of a chalk stream, so the link between the two was impossible to miss. Social used illustration to send up the ways we waste water at home. Tubitha, a working bath 125 times normal size, toured eight town centres, and Sandi Toksvig headlined a stand-up night from the River Chess. Everything pointed to one place, where customers could sign up and get free water-saving kit. In the first summer alone the campaign saved a billion litres, over 185,000 households signed up, and it won Best Integrated Campaign at The Drum Awards for Social Purpose.