Saving Water with Colgate

Colgate, a toothpaste brand with a rich history, often being the South African colloquial term for all toothpastes, were starting to lose its purpose amongst younger consumers. The agency needed to develop an innovative media campaign that will drive consideration amongst a younger generation. We taped into the insight of how important environmental issues are for this generation, and use that to inform our approach.

South Africa has been experiencing various water shortages and we realised that the future of South Africa, and access to water, are in the hands of our younger generation. Colgate’s brand purpose is rooted in creating a future worth smiling about. A future without any water is no joke. We wanted to show that in one brush, people can avoid wasting up to 19 liters of water by using a cup, instead of letting the tap run.

We needed to reach our younger consumers in a fun, engaging and educational way, so that we could create sustainable social change in the long term, and build a brand purpose to drive brand consideration.

Using Snapchat, we developed a fun and engaging lens, which allowed our audience to try and catch water droplets by moving a cup using Snapchat’s mobile augmented reality technology.

The mobile campaign which ran from the 22nd of March 2019 to the 31st of March 2019 linked back to Colgate’s #EveryCupCounts message that integrated into the larger water saving campaign during World Water Month.  Audiences were motivated to screenshot their lenses and share them on social media using the hashtag #EveryCupCounts to drive the message beyond the Snapchat Platform.