WUIW Year-End Summary 2020

FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT 2020 WUIW • FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT 1

The Arizona Water Partners are: • ADWR • AMWUA • CAP / CAGRD • EPCOR Water • Global Water Resources • Salt River Project And the municipalities of: • Avondale • Mesa • Buckeye • Peoria • Chandler • Phoenix • El Mirage • Queen Creek • Fountain Hills • Scottsdale • Glendale • Surprise • Goodyear • Tempe ABOUT US We are excited to welcome CAGRD to the partnership “Don’t tell us to save water. Show us how.” That was the sentiment for the fiscal year 2020-2021. of Arizona residents when local cities studied the best messages to use with water conservation outreach. Twenty-one years later, 20 Our Mission: partners drive Arizona’s Water – Use It Wisely coalition, sharing a commitment to sustaining our most precious resource by reducing Keep water conservation at our water use. Together, the partners orchestrate messaging, media the forefront of people’s minds interviews, public engagement promotions, classroom visits, and by combining funds for better more to spread water awareness with a consistent and unified buying power and to maximize message throughout the Valley. media exposure. Contact Us: If you are interested in becoming a partner, please email us at [email protected]. 2 FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT • WUIW

HOW CAN A PUSH BROOM SAVE YOU Tip #135 HUNDREDS OF GALLONS OF WATER? Use a broom instead of a hose to clean Since 1999, the Water – Use It Wisely conservation campaign has made smart water use patios, sidewalks and driveways, and save fun, easy, and practical for everyone by sharing tips on highly effective water-saving hundreds of gallons of water every time. devices like a wrench, a broom, and an irrigation timer. These, and 100+ other tips, remind consumers to think about the water they’re using when they come across the items in everyday life. Water-saving device #1 is, of course, you! With a goal to keep water-saving ideas in the forefront of people’s minds, the campaign employs a variety of media outlets to promote our 100+ tips, information on water-efficient landscaping, proper irrigation, Xeriscape, WaterSense labeled products, and more! This Year-End Summary Report is a reflection of the campaign partners’ top accomplishments over the past fiscal year. These achievements help Arizonans appreciate and conserve our most precious resource, water. After all, there are a number of ways to save water, and they all start with you. FISCAL YEAR 2019-2020 WILD RIDE Yes! This past fiscal year was exciting. It was great! Well… maybe have guessed that the first Spring HAPI was with WUIW would until March. Starting on July 1, HAPI joined the campaign as have involved complete pausing and pivoting of campaigns, the brand-new advertising agency of record for Water – Use shut-downs of buildings, events, and no longer being able to It Wisely (WUIW). HAPI (Hackett Advertising Public Relations meet in-person. This year has allowed us to dive deeper into how Interactive) had so many plans and exciting ideas to share: the residents of Arizona perceive our brand, how we accomplish qualitative and quantitative research, a social media campaign tasks with new tools and resources, and how important human based on monsoon season activity, refreshing our favorite interaction is. game – Tip Tank, and a Spring planting campaign. No one would WUIW • FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT 3

A “FOCUS” ON RESEARCH Everything we do and every decision we make should be based off of research and facts. We knew research needed to be a big part of pushing our brand forward. HAPI brought in the research experts at Brand Outlook to conduct qualitative and quantitative research. On November 19 we observed two focus groups as they were From L-R, Amy Peterson (Surprise), Deina Burns (Chandler), and Donna discussing aspects of water conservation and their awareness DiFrancesco (Mesa) watched the guided focus group discussion through of the Water – Use It Wisely brand. Top outcomes: a two-way mirror. • Water conservation is important to most residents, but This research project taught us that residents are concerned it isn’t always on the top of their mind. More than half about water conservation but lack the why and motivation to save water to save money on their water bill and for do anything about it. We are now using this research to drive future generations. forward new branding and messaging. • Our 100+ Tips were very appealing to every respondent. “If there are over a hundred tips, there is definitely more I can be doing to save water.” The focus group results helped inform our online survey that took place from March 4-18, 2020. Completed by 600 Valley residents, here are the top outcomes: • The survey reiterated most of what the focus group taught us but on a much larger scale. • Half thought that Arizona would experience a significant water shortage within the next ten years. • Two-thirds of the respondents believe that it is important to conserve water. • Ensuring the water supply for future generations was most commonly mentioned as the primary motivation to conserve water. TIP TANK – SAVE THE FISH! Tip Tank went live with a fresh look and all-device compatibility in March of 2020. With stay-at-home orders in Not only has 2020 done away with handshakes, hugs, and in place, we could not have released Tip Tank at a better time. person meetings, it has been the end of using Adobe Flash (on We also made changes to the game play: The game now gets Google Chrome, mobile devices and tablets). That was an issue increasingly difficult as the levels progress. An incorrect for our fourth most visited page, Tip Tank. match causes water to be lost from the fish tank. With each correct match, the player has a simple water-saving tip flash After up and must interact to continue play. Since updating Tip Tank there has been: +43% +34% 02:52 page views in average time average time on page on page Before Data comparison dates: 3/1/2020–6/30/2020 vs. 3/1/2019–6/30/2019 4 FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT • WUIW

MONSOON CAMPAIGN 2019 WUIW embarked on our first paid social media campaign that was weather triggered. Yes, weather triggered! With every monsoon storm that brought rain to the Valley, HAPI hit ‘start’ on paid social media ads that reminded residents to shut off their irrigation timers while it was raining. As we all know (and are again experiencing) 2019 brought us a ‘nonsoon’ season. While the campaign was only triggered four times from July 1 to October 31 due to the lack of significant storms, it yielded effective and significant results at a low cost. RESULTS 1,122 69,000 CLICKS IMPRESSIONS FALL MEDIA BUY Brand awareness is paramount to any successful brand. To generate even more awareness of the WUIW website and all it has to offer, the fall awareness campaign took a two-pronged approach: Bring awareness and drive clicks to the website. We utilized mass media tactics, like COX Cable and Google Pre-Roll, to generate awareness and keep water conservation at the forefront of residents’ minds. WUIW commercials could be seen on channels like ESPN, TLC, and Nat Geo. Google Pre-Roll allowed the campaign to reach across multiple devices and show WUIW commercials before YouTube videos and other video streaming services. In order to educate residents and take them to the WUIW website, paid social media ads ran concurrently with our mass media tactics. These ads included strong calls to action to encourage users to click thru to the WUIW website. Our end results surpassed our goals of 3.2 million impressions and 8,333 clicks to the website. RESULTS 8,927 3,741,089 CLICKS IMPRESSIONS WUIW • FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT 5

SPRING MEDIA BUY: WATER - PLANT IT WISELY The WUIW Spring 2020 Campaign was very well timed—it Spring planting was still incredibly relevant. While people were was all about spring landscape planting and all the resources spending more time at home, they were doing more home WUIW offered. We brainstormed. We planned. We approved. On renovations and more of their own yardwork. The messaging March 9, 2020 we started a great campaign. Little did we know, still made sense, but we knew we couldn’t promote going to days later on March 12 we would have to pause the campaign a nursery to buy low water use plants. What about no-contact due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Newsfeeds, radio and news purchases from local nurseries? We reached out to local stations were consumed with Coronavirus information, there nurseries to see who was offering delivery or curbside pick-up was no place for us to be promoting spring planting. We waited and added it to our Water– Plant It Wisely site. Nailed it! a few weeks and eventually realized that it was time to pivot and rethink our messaging. 6 FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT • WUIW

#BeASaguaro For a fun, social media and public engagement portion of the campaign we asked the public to pose like a saguaro (in any location) and to tag the photo with #BeASaguaro. We chose the emphasis on Saguaros since they are the desert’s most successful water conservationists. The winning photo won a $500-value landscape consultation from the AZ Plant Lady. The success was incredible. Within four short weeks we had reached over 20 million impressions. Radio Buys The campaign also included two radio buys. One on talk radio channel KTAR with our local home and garden show, Rosie on the House. The second included messages on National Public Radio station KJZZ. Rosie and Jennifer Romero from Rosie on the House and Donna DiFrancesco RESULTS 96,100 from Mesa pose for the #BeASaguaro promotion. The spring media buy included a full garden-hour interview and radio spot commercials for a four 20,846,247 CLICKS week period. IMPRESSIONS WUIW • FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT 7

WATER BY NUMBERS The goal of the website is to educate and activate change. The objective of social media is to get users to engage with our social channels. WEBSITE 15% 29% TOP 5 PAGES VISITED 1,233,731 836,420 1 10 Reasons Why Artificial Turf May Not Be What You’re total page views total sessions Looking For 2 34% 13% 100 Ways to Conserve Water (100+ Tips) 19,135 8,561 3 Kids Games 4 Tip Tank sessions from social sessions from email 29% 713,122 5 Is 24,000 Gallons of Water Per Month Too Much For a new users Family of Three? *All numbers in this report, unless indicated otherwise were pulled from July 2019–June 2020. PAID CAMPAIGN EFFORTS ORGANIC EFFORTS Impressions Link Clicks CTR Water - Plant it Wisely 20,846,247 96,100 0.46% Monsoon Campaign 2019 67,628 1,122 1.66% 851 1,842,955 8,891 Fall Campaign 2019 2,879,211 8,927 0.31% Tip Tank 2,038,406 15,125 0.74% posts to social persons reached via reactions/likes Boosted Blog Posts 129,159 4,103 3.18% media platforms organic efforts Totals 25,960,651 125,377 0.48% 14,854 337 1,579 link clicks comments shares See glossary on next page for definitions of impressions, link clicks, and CTR. 8 FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT • WUIW

GEOGRAPHIC REACH BY CITY DEMOGRAPHICS 1 Phoenix 41,279 29% 6 Scottsdale 7,166 5% 2 Mesa 17,613 12% 7 Glendale 6,077 4% 55z+45GenderSample 3 Tucson 9,748 7% 8 Gilbert 5,007 4% 4 Tempe 8,792 6% 9 Peoria 2,844 2% Male 5 Chandler 8,487 6% 10 Surprise 2,619 2% 45% Female MONTHLY E-NEWSLETTER 55% Our eNewsletter continues to drop in over 30,000 inboxes every month offering seasonably relevant and valuable information. The eNewsletter drives our readers to Age Sample 18-24 the WUIW website to educate and motivate them to conserve water around their homes. 11% 65+ After 14% 25-34 27% 55-64 35-44 11z20+14714% 20% 45-54 14% Device 53z+416Tablet Mobile 53% 6% Desktop 41% GLOSSARY Before Impression LOOKING FORWARD When a user sees an advertisement. In practice, an impression occurs any After 20 years we are excited to announce we are working with HAPI through a time a user opens an app or website rebranding process! We will be updating and rejuvenating our brand with a new logo, and an advertisement is visible. look, website, and more based on the research that was conducted this past year. Our refreshed brand will be dropped in March 2021. It’s been an exciting and CTR (Click-through rate) tough process, but we can’t wait for everyone to see it! The ratio of users who click on a specific link to view a page, email, WUIW • FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT 9 or advertisement. It is commonly used to measure the success of an online advertising campaign for a particular website. Link clicks The number of clicks on links to select destinations or experiences.

EVENTS & PARTNER NEWS Our partners stayed busy promoting WUIW at events all across the Valley from summer 2019 until early spring 2020. SHADE WATER TOWER August 2019 – At the Southwest Horticulture Annual Day of The 16-foot water tower made its monthly rounds to many Education Ron Whitler (Buckeye) and Rick Obenshain (EPCOR partner locations including Mesa Public Library (above), the Water) spent the day educating attendees about everything AZ State Capitol (ADWR), and Queen Creek. WUIW has to offer and signing them up for our monthly “News Drops” e-newsletter. IMAGINE A DAY WITHOUT WATER October 2019 – Zack Richards (ADWR) was interviewed to discuss his van-dwelling lifestyle and how he conserves water every day. SRP WATER CONSERVATION EXPO LOCAL FIRST ARIZONA FALL FEST March 2020 – WUIW participated once again at the SRP Expo. Seen here showing off Wayne Emoji are Deina Burns (Chandler), November 2019 – WUIW partners Leeann Yacuel (SRP) and Deina Christian Delgado (Phoenix), and Sam Draper (AMWUA). An Burns (Chandler) represented as the “local” water conservation interactive display also promoted the Water – Plant It Wisely brand among 200 other local vendors. Attendees played trivia campaign. This young lady was thrilled to win a Wayne Drop for branded swag items, brought their dogs by for pictures and beanie by answering a trivia question. Due to the pandemic, it collapsible dog bowls, and some even got WUIW tattoos! was one of the last events to take place. 10 FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT • WUIW

WAYNE DROP SIGHTINGS City Hall Selfie - August 2019 Day of Play - October 2019 ASU Homecoming - November 2019 How do you combine #CityHallSelfie day with When Chandler turns Tumbleweed Park into a playground for The City of Tempe brought Wayne Lemon Meringue Pie day? Simple! Take a selfie in all, you can bet that Wayne will turn up for some family fun and Drop by to hang out with Sparky front of a city facility having a pie picnic with your some high-fives (technically fours) with the kids. for this time-honored tradition that water conservation buddies, Glendale’s Victoria brings together students, parents, Caster (now with Peoria) & Joanne Toms. alumni, and a favorite water drop to celebrate Sun Devil Spirit. Veteran’s Day Parade - November 2019 King Wayne - December 2019 Proper Pruning Saves Water - Wayne got to honor Veterans and check out this Victory Wayne got to play King for the Day at the 18th May 2020 motorcycle when he attended this Buckeye event. He got to Annual Surprise Party hosted by… wait for it… When Scottsdale needed to show his American pride with his best display of red, white, the City of Surprise, of course. promote their virtual pruning and especially blue! class, they figured Wayne Drop would be a cut above the rest for getting attention and likes on social media promotions. Training Good Friend Loo Poo - June 2020 Phoenix Water Services decided it was time Wayne Drop had a sidekick to talk about the stinky side of things. Loo Poo is the go-to guy when it comes to wastewater and what shouldn’t go in your toilet. WUIW • FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT 11

WUIW PARTNERS 12 FISCAL YEAR-END SUMMARY REPORT • WUIW