QUU - WSA Campaign
Background
Queensland Urban Utilities (QUU) is the new water and wastewater services provider and is owned by the five councils of Brisbane, Ipswich, Lockyer Valley, Scenic Rim and Somerset. Launched in the Brisbane market in November 2009, QUU rolled out its Western Services Area (WSA) launch in July 2010. Where previously residents and businesses’ water usage was rolled into their rates account issued by their local council, QUU now looks after the billing of a separate water and sewerage account as well as handling all customer enquiries. Operating as an entirely new brand and business, QUU enlisted Brio Group to develop a WSA launch campaign to develop brand awareness through multiple touch points and to prepare the markets for the July 2010 launch and imminent arrival of the first bill.
We created
Press Ads / Radio Script & Production / Media Plan / Direct Mail Collateral / Bill Base Stocks / Internal Marketing Collateral
Teams Involved
Brio Design
Brio Advertising
Brio PR
Objectives
To generate prompted awareness of QUU and the changes to the water legislation and how this will affect WSA residents and businesses. To inform and increase awareness of QUU. Brio Group were asked to propose concepts and strategy on how best to communicate to the WSA audiences.
Strategic Approach
Armed with market research of how the WSA target market felt about water, change, and their response to the Brisbane campaign and co-branding between councils we suggested a strategic, more localised approach to the WSA campaign. Comprising of four key phases - Familiarsation, Pre-Bill, Launch and Bill – we suggested the creative to communicate in a no-nonsense, direct manner. Instead of a large scale, multi-level media campaign which the target audience may translate to over-spending, we balanced the campaign to achieve maximum exposure in the most simple and direct manner through local newspapers and regional radio stations. We produced localised sets of creative per WSA that are designed to roll out through each campaign stage. We felt it was paramount to use local imagery where possible. For example, the ‘New Name. Same local people.’ creative is local and direct and employs photography of real QUU workers within the WSA areas, standing infront of iconic or easily-recogniseable backgrounds. We incorporated the clean, modern and simplistic QUU branding and an informational, direct and approachable tone of voice - so we were talking openly and direct to the target audiences.
Results
QUU enjoyed our ‘keep it local and simple’ approach and agreed to produce the creative for each phase and roll out through an intensive local newspaper and radio campaign, publishing half page ads and 30 second radio spots. The ads formed part of the overall campaign strategy that also involved rolling out timely direct mail initiatives in the pre-bill and bill phases. To successfully manage this large scale campaign, we utilised Brio Plan, a planning spreadsheet that is totally transparent allowing the client and agency to schedule and keep track of each stage of the projects.
Design
Digital
Advertising
