Project Waterless
Levi’s® Brand Malaysia
Issue 34 | March 2015
Agency
BBDO Malaysia
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Tan Chee Keong Creative Directors Adam Chan Carina Teo Copywriters Adam Chan Ferhan Faidzan Art Directors Tan Chee Keong Miimo Leong Designer Lian Ee Wern
Production Team
Head Of AV Hong Nyok Hwa Agency Producers Sandra Duarete Jackie Chong Production House Producers Jelise Chung Pat Singh Andrea Duarete
Date
February 2014
Background
Under the auspices of the United Nations Global Compact, Levi Strauss & Co was one of the founding signatories of the CEO Water Mandate, recognising that in an era of increasing water scarcity there was a pressing need to reduce the amount of water used in the manufacture of jeans.
Water
But there was a problem. How was this relevant to a nation with the highest water consumption per capita in the region?
Idea
Through a dialogue started in social media, the target audience was persuaded to save water themselves by changing some of their wasteful habits. What prompted them to use less water washing their cars, showering with a friend, reusing the water from their fishtanks to water their plants was a simple reward.
The more water they saved, the more money they could get off a new pair of Levi's®.
People began sharing their own tips for saving water. (Collect your shower water and use it to flush the toilet; put a brick in your lavatory's cistern; collect rainwater etc).
All people had to do now was bring in both their old and their new water bills to a Levi's® store. The more water they had saved, the greater the reward with every 1m3 saved equating to rm20 (nearly €5) off the waterless jeans.
Results
The campaign was a success in more than 41 stores nationwide, increasing traffic by 15% and boosting sales by 20%. The campaign was covered in local dailies securing 460,000 PR impressions as Malaysia learned to see Water
Our Thoughts
Taking a lead from Unilever, an increasing number of companies are re-engineering themselves around sustainability not because changing circumstances are forcing them to adapt but more because it is prompting them to make better and ultimately more profitable products. Persuading their customers that they actually need these new products is something else altogether. Trying to scare us into better habits hasn’t worked at all for Friends of the Earth. But Levi’s® seems to have got it right by resorting to simple bribery. More than that, though, they have made saving water fun rather than funereal (shower with a friend) and that really does seem to have changed behaviours.