Spotlight on the Solent
Southern Water supplies drinking water to 2million people in the south east. They have a multi million pound improvement scheme for customers and the environment and wanted to showcase their major engineering project in the Solent.
What they say
“A great example of how to use new media appropriately and effectively as a core element of a communications campaign.”
Judges, CIPR Excellence Awards
The challenge
The project Southern Water was carrying out was to replace the mains that supply water to the Isle of Wight, safeguarding the water supply to the Island for years to come. The aim of the microsite was to promote the project and really engage and interact with the local community and other stakeholders. In particular they wanted to bring the project to life for local schoolchildren as a live example of a technical engineering scheme that brings benefits to the community and the environment and educate them on the water supply process.
Our solution
We developed a very unique microsite with key interactive tools that provided lively and dynamic information to captivate the audience. As well as clear and informative details about the project, we included lots of special features to encourage engagement with the local community. These included:
- Live webcam feeds from key site locations that brought the project to live so people could see the engineering work that was being carried out
- Podcasts from members of the project team
- Live webchat with local schoolchildren so they could ask questions and find out more
- Regular blogs from the project team
Results
- An extremely effective microsite that promoted the scheme and helped the project team engage with the local community.
- Innovative use of the latest web and social media tools
- Award winning – the microsite scooped two major New Media awards from the PRCA and CIPR