The only not-for-profit water company in Wales and England has taken home a clean sweep at the UK-wide Chartered Institute of Marketing Excellence Awards.
Dwr Cymru Welsh Water won in all three categories it was nominated at the ceremony in London last week – winning in Best Advertising Campaign, Best Brand Building Campaign and in Innovation (Not-for-profit / Public Sector) for its “For Wales, Not for Profit” campaign throughout 2017.
The company, which has three million customers across most of Wales, Herefordshire, and parts of Cheshire, beat off competition from some of the UK’s most well-known companies, including Moneysupermarket, BT and TSB.
Welsh Water ran the “For Wales, Not for Profit” campaign last year, focusing on how its water and wastewater services affect people’s daily lives and also emphasised how the company was not-for-profit – with no shareholders – meaning it can prioritise listening to its customers.
Its not-for-profit way of working means it doesn’t have shareholders, and any surplus money it makes is re-invested back into the business to benefit its customers. It also builds working together with its customers into its day-to-day working, meaning customers have a say in the decisions it makes.
The campaign launch promoted the company’s biggest-ever consultation, Have Your Say, which toured around Wales and Herefordshire to gather customer views on its future priorities – reaching an unprecedented 20,000 responses. The results are helping the company plan its long-term investments for the next investment period between 2020 and 2025, and for decades to come.
Have Your Say also featured innovative ways for customers to take part – including a Wales and world-first bilingual Welsh-English chatbot, where users could register their views on Facebook Messenger.
The television advert in the summer featured Welsh Water colleagues as its stars, was produced with Welsh companies Orchard Media and Heavenly, and featured Welsh actor Matthew Rhys as the voiceover.
The awards also follow on from the personal success of the company’s Head of Brand and Marketing, Morgan Lloyd, who scooped the Marketer of the Year Award last year.
Welsh Water Chief Executive Chris Jones said:
“These awards are fantastic recognition of the work being done to encourage our customers to get involved in helping us to meet their expectations for the future.
“Our campaign is designed to show how the way we work isn’t just different – but means we can listen to our customers as part of our day-to-day decision making. This campaign promoted our biggest-ever customer consultation on how we should work in future – so this recognition is a big encouragement that we’re doing the right thing.
“We want to be a leader not just in the utility sector in how we listen to and work with our customers, but across the UK economy as a whole.”
