HAYRATS, THE WATERLESS
FOUNTAINS BY FINISH
THE CASE
OBJECTIVES
Turkey is a country surrounded by water, this fact creates an illusion, most citizen still think that water is infinite. Our objective was to draw people's attention to impending drought, show them drought is sooner than we thought, and encourage them to save more.
INSIGHT
In the eighteen centuries, fountains called Hayrats were a central feature of visual and literary representations or Turkish cities. They turned into the most lavish of public monuments and became a predominant obsession among and expanding number of rich patrons. Their proliferation in the eighteen centuries was phenomenal and they were built in almost every corner of Turkey.
However, these fountains started to dry up one by one and today, there are merely decorative monuments.
As an activist brand Finish, the brand name of a range of dishwasher detergent products, has been focusing on creating a social consciousness about Turkey’s seemingly unstoppable descent into becoming a water poor country.
No surprise then that the story of Hayrats grabbed our attention, we saw it as a great opportunity to strengthen the brand’s claim about the importance of saving water by using our country’s history!
The biggest insight was that even if these fountains have become merely decorative monuments, Turkish people are aware about the real meaning and original use of these monuments. It would therefore be very easy to communicate the lack of water problem by using the Hayrats as a media medium…
IDEA & STRATEGY
In the last 2 years in Turkey, Finish has focused itself on creating a social consciousness about Turkey’s seemingly unstoppable descent into becoming a water poor country.
With his activation we wanted to encourage people to take action helping them calculate their water footprints to understand how many litters they consume in a week and start saving the water as of today .
To achieve our objectives, we turned these fountains into a medium. More than 300 dry Hayrats in 32 cities broke their silence and became our channels to communicate our message. With the help of i-beacon technology, we reached people as they walked in front of the fountain.
We pushed notifications on their mobile phones and took the audience to a webpage where they listened to a message about the Hayrat they just passed by, telling the story about why it is no longer delivering water, giving them evidence of the possible drought Turkey is facing. We also directed people to yarininsuyu.com and called them to action by getting their water footprints calculated and allowing them to commit to a specific water saving objective.
EXECUTION
First, we identified the Hayrats that were situated in crowded streets or squares in 32 cities.
We then identified those that were no longer flowing, those who were close to crowded places, and finally we calculated how many pedestrians passed there during a day.
Based on these numbers we selected more than 300 Hayrats in 32 cities.
We then attached a beacon to the fountains who sent customized notification to pedestrians with a message from the Hayrat they had just passed in front of.
We let the user know about the story of the Hayrat, the date it has built, and we led people to an informative video about Hayrats and the impending drought in Turkey.
We also encouraged them to calculate their water footprints and gave them suggestions about how to start saving water today.
RESULTS
Within just 10 days, more than 50.000 people reached through i-beacons on Hayrats. We got 4 times more engagement rate with these beacons (compared to industry average).
The number of visitors of our website Yarınınsuyu.com increased by 400%.
Hayrat project made headlines on news in Turkey’s most watched news channel such as A Haber and Haber Türk, and newspapers such as Sabah, increasing our reach all over Turkey.
Ibeacon benchmark / open rate of messages sent: Android 3.1% & iOS 2.8%; Hayrat Campaign had an 8% open rate.
