When COVID-19 hit, Americans were overwhelmed by how best to prevent the spread of the virus, yet one message never wavered: Wash your hands. But how do you wash your hands if you don’t have water? With soaring unemployment numbers, people couldn’t afford to pay their bills. And nearly 40% of Americans were at risk of water shutoffs.
As the leading faucet company, Moen couldn’t stand idly by. Our job was twofold: Make people aware of this urgent problem, and get them to do something about it. With enough signatures, Congress could pass immediate assistance for low-income families with unaffordable water bills.
Our strategy was to rally Americans to call on Congress to ban shutoffs during the pandemic, a move that could ultimately change the course of the virus’s toll on America. So we got to work crafting a 360 campaign, encouraging Americans to take action.
We came up with the idea of using a locked sink as a metaphor for the problem and designed a visual device to communicate our message on a major scale.
Posters empowered people on a local level, and we spread the word on social, ran homepage takeovers and digital displays, and even had the final word in The New York Times Sunday edition.
It worked; we helped our partners at Food & Water Watch bombard Congress with more letters than ever before—setting the stage for Congress to do the right thing.
Our campaign garnered over 60.7 million impressions, resulting in more than 26,000 petitions signed and Congress passing immediate assistance for low-income families with unaffordable water bills.
