Water Use It Wisely: Your Per$pective

So between the public comments on the blog and the private emails, I’ve received a healthy cross section of opinions on the Water Use It Wisely campaign. Most people seem positive about their experience with it, but the most common point raised about the campaign is that it is (drumroll please) expen$ive.

So here’s where I come down on that: Good PR campaigns are expensive, but it’s an investment that our community needs to make more often. Today, scientists do double duty as speechwriters, engineers speak on camera, lobbyists create web pages, and lawyers write ads. They generally have little training and little access to professional assistance to help them do any of these things well. And we pay the price for our cheapskate ways every time the governor prepares next year’s budget request, every time a developer seeks a waiver to pave a wetland, every time an otherwise well-meaning person dumps their motor oil down a storm drain.

Water Words is one effort to help nature protection and pollution control experts communicate more effectively, and professionally produced “out of the box” campaigns like Water Use It Wisely are another.

So I’m not surprised (or particularly concerned) that Water Use It Wisely is expensive. If you choose not to make this particular investment, I’d encourage you to shop around until you find some campaigns you do believe in.

P.S. Thanks to the campaign for the licensed version of the logo I’m using in today’s post. Hat tip for being nice to me even after I asked pointed questions about your product in a public forum. That’s class.

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