Many ideas have been fluttering around in my head for my next post, but this was the one that made me finally get back to the ol' blog!
I was watching some of the award winners from this year's Cannes ad festival (the Academy Awards/Oscars/Grammies of the ad industry). A submission for UNICEF caught my eye. The objective was simple - provide a means of fundraising for the organization, raise awareness of World Water Day. The solution was equally simple - Tap Water. Dubbed the Tap Project, the initiative is rolling out to cities across the world, charging restaurant patrons $1 for a typically free glass of tap water. It's a powerful but simple solution.
Check out the video with the award submission. It's from an agency called DROGA5, who apparently approached UNICEF with the idea.
I was watching some of the award winners from this year's Cannes ad festival (the Academy Awards/Oscars/Grammies of the ad industry). A submission for UNICEF caught my eye. The objective was simple - provide a means of fundraising for the organization, raise awareness of World Water Day. The solution was equally simple - Tap Water. Dubbed the Tap Project, the initiative is rolling out to cities across the world, charging restaurant patrons $1 for a typically free glass of tap water. It's a powerful but simple solution.
Check out the video with the award submission. It's from an agency called DROGA5, who apparently approached UNICEF with the idea.
The incredible thing is the allure it must present to fashionable restaurants, and their patrons, who have been given an opportunity to participate in such a worthy cause. One might fault UNICEF for putting people on the spot, but in a world where water is often something we pay for it's not such a foreign notion that a particular glass of the stuff might cost a dollar for a day.
I love that it launched in New York, as New Yorkers like to imagine their public water supply is among the best in the world. It's a nice twist to have tapped into a singular point of pride. And it's fascinating that the core of the concept lived in doing what New Yorkers have done for so long - creating a brand out of tap water. It's credited with the producing the best bagels and pizza in the country, after all. Bloomberg's Finest, anyone?
