Clever utility conservation videos shared with nationwide audience

The scene in the video opens with a clap, a peppy, head-bopping tune, and a woman covered in bubbles, rocking out in the bathtub.

The tune is so captivating, the images of people chortling in the shower so eye-catching, that there’s no reason to hit pause and continue surfing YouTube. Before long, the viewer is soaking up water-saving tips and cued to install WaterSense showerheads. (Pictured right, image from the Shower with Power video.)

“Water is really taken for granted,” said Chris Robbins, public information/conservation supervisor for Vallecitos Water District. “These videos are helping people get a better idea about water, its value, what it’s worth.”

Vallecitos Water District, which serves about 108,000 people in Southern California, produces a new video each month to encourage wise water use; those videos are then shared by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a way to promote WaterSense and conservation nationwide. 

These WaterSense-themed videos are just Vallecitos’s latest efforts to create and share catchy videos about water careers, local ecosystems, infrastructure, and so much more. 

“We wanted to try something new,” Robbins said. “With a tri-fold brochure, we’d go to an event and hand these things out and people would just stick it in the trash. We wanted to transition from paper-driven products to more social media.”

Lisa Urabe, who manages Vallecitos’s website and social media, started looking into adding video to their public relations toolkit about 10 years ago. Public information representative Alicia Yerman, who produces the videos, attended training in Los Angeles, and has spent years building on those first lessons. She’s learned how to use different pieces of equipment, incorporate animation and graphics, and how to be edgy but relevant, thorough but concise. 

“It took a while to get things going, go through training,” Yerman said. “Even now, every time you get a new piece of equipment, you need to take the time to learn how to use it.”

The videos all tell a story that leave an impression with the viewer, Robbins said, one that’s more lasting than a list of facts on a brochure. 

“Somewhere in the video, it’s letting you know that water is an important resource. This isn’t something that we can waste. Let’s use it wisely, let’s use it efficiently,” Robbins said. 

The effort is paying off, and with the EPA’s national platform, Vallecitos’s message of using water wisely – and the tools available to help customers do so – reaches far beyond its 45-square-mile boundary. The water district’s video program has garnered several awards, including the 2020 Public Communications Achievement Award from the American Water Works Association, as well as top nods from the San Diego Press Club. 

“We’re all trying to say the same message: Water is too important to waste,” Yerman said. “And now we’re able to get that message out on a large scale.”