1. Introduction and Research
Davis and Associates Communications and the San Francisco Public Utilities
Commission aimed to inform the people why the sewage system is so important by the
Learn About Me campaign. They wanted to teach the people of San Francisco why the
sewage system was so important and correct them about wrong information. The reason
for informing the city is that the current sewage system is old, beyond repair, and needs
to be replaced completely. Why do they need to inform the city of San Francisco if the
sewage system just needs to be replaced? Maybe because the replacement will cost
taxpayers $6.7 billion and will also result in many detours, dug up roads, and dust from
the dug up roads. It is a 20-year sewage replacement plan so roads all over San Francisco
will be like that for 20 years, not just a few.
After doing further research into the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission,
or SFPUC, I found that they are a department of the city that deals with water, waste, and
power. Their mission statement says they want to supply the best and most efficient
utilities, while meeting the environmental and community interests, according to the
SFPUC website. From the SFPUC website it shows they have a genuine interest in
making the community better as well as listening to their feedback for improvement. The
target audience of course is the whole city of San Francisco, but the problem is reaching
every demographic. One must keep in mind that the target audience is most likely not
going to care about a sewage system, rather the money it will cost them, the damage it
will cause to the roads, and longer commute times. A lot of the target audience was upset
about the replacement so informing and persuading them it is a good for the city was a
tall task.
Scenario and Objectives
The campaign ended up being very successful by not only informing people, but
getting them on board with the plan and talking about it as well. In 2012, SFPUC held
five focus groups from different “geographic areas and demographic subgroups” to gauge
the knowledge the groups had on the subject, according to the case summary. They found
that most people did not know how bad the sewage system was and how important it was.
After being informed though, they found the groups were for replacing the sewage
system.
When shown the facts about the problem and how it could affect public health
everyone “expressed a great deal of concern” and wanted to take action on the plan,
according to the case summary. While this might have helped them figure out all they
need to know, I think a little more research should have been done. I would suggest an
online survey or questionnaire about the sewage system as well as the five focus groups.
Even then there should be more focus groups, that way you have an even broader scale of
people that you know are not informed.
The objectives of this campaign were to simply inform the city and help them
understand why the new sewage system was needed. While they did accomplish their
objectives I could not find any truly stated objectives, just what they hoped to achieve in
the case summary. The objectives seemed more like goals and did not meet the standards
discussed in class. While they were specific about raising awareness of the sewage
2. system and the new plan, everything else did not really meet the standards. They were
stated in infinitive form but, in the middle of the sentence and did not seem like an
objective. There was no stated timeframe, but the campaign did last 3 years. There was
also nothing stated that would make the objective measurable. It is important to know
that they did use two-way communication effectively through social media sites as well
as some other things I will cover later.
Uncontrolled and Controlled Media (Programming)
In this campaign, Davis and Associates Communication took a somewhat
unorthodox approach. They did not do the typical events, press releases, interviews, and
photo opportunities. They simply came up with fun and creative slogans such as “You’re
Number 2 is my number 1” and “No one deals with more crap than I do” and put them on
MUNI buses, trains and in all different kinds of newspapers. By doing this, the campaign
blew up and got all kinds of media coverage nation-wide. The campaign received all
kinds of uncontrolled media attention, such as feature stories from Gizmodo, as well as
news articles and photographs by Inc, Fast Company, NBC, ABC, and other media
outlets. Everyone loved the slogans and were taking pictures and posting them to social
media sites gaining more and more attention.
Putting the slogans on the MUNI buses and trains and in different languages all
over San Francisco was controlled media that led to a huge amount of media attention.
For the campaign SFPUC also put out informational videos on their website and
YouTube about the sewage system and the new plan. The campaign also implemented a
“strategic social media outreach strategy,” according to the case summary. This did not
only help them reach people from all demographics, but got them actually talking about
the situation.
This part of the campaign has been very clever and successful, especially putting
the slogans in different languages. By putting the slogans in different languages they
were able to get through to many different demographics. The only thing that might need
to be added is videos, brochures, and more information about the new plan, not why the
plan needs to be implemented. They could have made their own campaign website as
well instead of tying it in with the SFPUC website. My last suggestion would be to
advertise in all the public bathrooms, if it is about sewage and potty humor that would be
the perfect setting. For instance, they could have put urinal cakes or posters in the
bathrooms with the slogans on them.
Key Messages and Effective Communication Tools
(Programming)
Another good and not very common idea was having the focus groups help come
up with the key messages for the campaign. They were easy to understand and contained
facts in them about the sewage system and SFPUC. The key messages were just that the
sewage system was not built to handle major earthquakes and the infrastructure was
beyond repair and falling apart, according to research done by the SFPUC. The other
messages stated it could affect the public’s health and the new system would be reliable
3. for a long time. The last message was SFPUC has a history of being successful with large
projects. I think these key messages are great and getting audience participation and
suggestions in the messages was a great idea. The only change would be to possibly add a
message about safety and efficiency as well. That way the city knows that the
commission is being careful and wants to get things done in a timely manner as well.
This campaign included most of the effective communication tools. The first tool,
source credibility was used very effectively. The SFPUC is a government agency,
therefore making it a very reliable source. They did not have to worry a lot about source
credibility since any government agency is already a highly credible source. The positive
media coverage received from the campaign reinforced that credibility as well. The only
thing I can think of to improve this aspect would be to go to another agency that deals
with utilities and have them verify your information. This would help make the campaign
more credible, but might be a little extensive, especially on a tight budget.
The next communication tool that was used in the campaign was salient
information. The use of these clever slogans helped people actually stop and figure out
what the campaign was about. The slogans struck a responsive chord in the target
audience and led them to post on social media as well as learning about the situation for
themselves. This eventually led to audience participation and even two-way
communication. Using salient information effectively is a great way to get people
motivated and moving.
One of the more underutilized tools in this campaign was the nonverbal cues. The
advertisements did have a sewer cover on them, which is a nonverbal cue but seems
minimal. The bottom half the ads are green, but should have been brown in my opinion. I
think most people would relate brown to waste and sewage, which would be another
nonverbal cue. Another thing they might be able to improve is replace the “o” or all the
“o’s” in the slogan with a picture of a clean toilet. That way it would portray the potty
humor, but also that they are trying to clean up the system.
The strongest part of the campaign and a big reason why it was so successful is
because of its verbal cues. The potty humor and slogans are hilarious and strikes a laugh
in almost everybody. I do not think I know anyone that would not laugh at “Your
Number 2 is my number 1.” Not only that, but they used potty humor in a way to where it
was not too crude or distasteful. The verbal cues were so successful they implemented it
all throughout the campaign. I think this is the only part of the campaign that is spot on
and does not really need improvement.
Another very effective communication tool that was used in the campaign was
two-way communication. The SFPUC had their own Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
pages, and not only let people post to their pages, but responded as well, completing the
process of two-way communication. Doing this was a great idea and a good way to get
people informed and talking about the situation. The only change I would suggest would
be to have a feedback page on the website. That way people can ask questions or give
suggestions as well as have them answered by the SFPUC.
Audience participation is a very effective communication tool that was properly
used in the campaign as well. They knew the slogans would catch people’s attention so
once people found out what it was the SFPUC wanted to get the audience to participate
and be informed. The audience was able to participate by seeing what the campaign was
about for themselves and further participate by getting informed through the SFPUC
4. website or social media sites. They have #WaterHeroWednesday and #WaterHeroSelfie
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to get people to participate in the campaign by
posting pictures of themselves conserving water, according the SFPUC website. The only
suggestion I have would be to have a fun and clever game or application that people play
online or on their mobile devices. That way they can participate, have fun, and also get
informed on the subject. This would be a great example of audience participation and you
could directly see how many people have participated by the number of downloads of the
application or game.
Since the campaign was so successful already with these tools they did not need
to use group influence, selective exposure or find an opinion leader. One could argue that
using the slogans in different languages could have caused group leaders in different
cultures to spread the information, but there is no way to know. Since they wanted the
whole city to be informed, group influence and selective exposure would not have been
very successful tools in this campaign. They could however use an opinion leader such as
Harlan L. Kelley, the general manager of SFPUC. That would increase source credibility
as well as have an opinion leader without having to pay him. The higher number of
effective communication tools in the campaign, the more successful it will likely be.
Evaluation
After doing research on the target audience Davis and Associates
Communications found that the city of San Francisco is extremely diverse and consists of
all different types of demographics and subgroups. By using this unorthodox method of
potty humor they were successfully able to reach people across all different
demographics. The attention and coverage the campaign has received from the media and
people have been overwhelmingly positive. According to sfwater.org, the campaign has
made over 69 million impressions and increased the amount of visitors to their website by
23 percent. Inc said the campaign was “creative” and had “killer social media.” Someone
on Twitter even posted a before and after picture of a dirty storm drain and a clean one.
The person cleaned it himself and the campaign has led to people doing this to help the
sewage system.
Overall the campaign was very successful and accomplished the goal of getting
the city of San Francisco informed and on board with the new sewage system plan. There
was no way however to measure the success of the campaign since there was no stated
input or output objectives. The clever slogans and good social media strategy were the
strongest points of the campaign. There was nothing very negative or bad about the
campaign except for the missing objectives. The campaign more than accomplished what
it needed to by getting the people of San Francisco all in on the new sewage system plan.
6. SF Water, Power, Sewer (SFPUC). (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2015, from
https://www.facebook.com/SFWater
(n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2015, from https://twitter.com/sfwater
