THIRSTY TAGS

Short List
TitleTHIRSTY TAGS
BrandGEORGIAN WATER AND POWER
Product/ServiceWATER SUPPLIER
Category C02. Use of Social in a PR campaign
Entrant REDBERRY Tbilisi, GEORGIA
Idea Creation REDBERRY Tbilisi, GEORGIA
Media Placement REDBERRY Tbilisi, GEORGIA
PR REDBERRY Tbilisi, GEORGIA
Production REDBERRY Tbilisi, GEORGIA
Credits
Name Company Position
Toka Areshidze Redberry Creative Director
Rezo Shelia Creative Director
Mariam Khoperia Redberry Executive Producer
Gaga Darsalia Redberry Strategist
Niko Rekhviashvili Redberry Strategist
George Karanadze Redberry Strategist
Levan Ketskhoveli Redberry Account Director
Nina Modebadze Redberry Copywriter
Liana Modebadze Redberry Copywriter
Salome Khazaradze Redberry Graphic Designer
Mariam Giguashvili Redberry Graphic Designers
Aleksandre Kvetenadze Redberry Digital Planner
Gogita Chikvaidze Redberry Director of Photography
Irakli Chakhnashvili Freelance Producer
Irakli Kiria Freelancer Producer
Taso Okropiridze Freelancer Casting
Nino Gokhadze Freelancer Set Decorator
Giorgi Akhvlediani Redberry Editing

Why is this work relevant for PR?

We are Georgian Water and Power and we have exclusive rights to manage water in the capital of Georgia. In social media, all of the brand mentions were negative and tagging us on Facebook became some sort of a cultural phenomenon. People had wrongful opinions about our competence, and it had to be addressed. We used virality potential of Facebook tags in our own advantage, allowing our professionals to speak for themselves in the media which damaged their reputation in a first place. Each video demonstrated that we react instantly, work 24/7 and most importantly cared about each individual customer.

Background

Georgian water supply system has long expired its limits. Therefore, it is no surprise, that accidents occur regularly throughout Tbilisi. We are Georgian Watere and Power, company which is the only water supplier of the city and last time we checked, people hated us There was 0 positive brand mentions in social media, and tons of negative ones. Even though we were doing our best, people never got to witness our works, thus, whenever accidents happened, they thought it was solely because of our inaction, while in reality, these were the hours we were working the hardest. Our goal was to assure people, that the accidental shortages were not caused by our incompetence. We only closed off their water supply, because it was necessary for ongoing repairs. We wanted to expose our hard work to those people and change the way they perceived us.

Describe the creative idea

Our employees knew both the nature of the problem and the way to solve it, so we let them respond to the haters directly. We wanted to give our customers information in a simple and the most credible way, depicting our employees during their work. The idea focused on the simplicity of interactions and witty, personalized remarks, answering concerns of our customers with facts. Each tag was answered by the who were working on the exact region and problem mentioned in the tag.

Describe the strategy

As long as GWP is responsible for supplying the capital city of Georgia with water, everyone in Tbilisi was included in our target audience, but mostly it consisted of active social media users, who created the trend of making fun of GWP, tagging us every time water was cut off. Customer generated viral content gave us unique media opportunity to use posts that damaged our image and use their viral potential in our own advantage. We were able to expose our hard works which were preciously invisable to the eye due to their hidden nature and start two-way communication in which professionals could personally provide truthfull and reliable information.

Describe the execution

During the 3 weeks time, we answered every smart-ass facebook tag with an even smarter-ass personalized video responses right from the epicenter of the works. Our responses were immediate and went directly to the comment section below our customer’s posts. We made it sure, that every concern our customer had, was mentioned in our replies. We updated them with details about current states of the works and gave exact times when the water will be available again. Each of those videos demonstrated that we reacted instantly, worked 24/7 and individually cared about our customers.

List the results

Many of the answers went viral. Campaign amounted 3 million views, 105 000 reactions and negative feedback went down from 95%, to 5%. Our efforts got covered in both the TV news and majority of physical and online news publishers. Videos convinced our customers, that we worked 24/7, reacted instantly and most importantly, cared about their discomforts. As a result, our brand perception shifted from the most hated, to the most loved.