ezH20 units sold in three years
conversion rate across all SEM and remarketing campaigns
The Challenge
Research revealed that while sustainability initiatives were gaining momentum in schools, corporations, and public spaces, decision-makers faced several barriers: budget constraints making green initiatives “nice-to-haves” rather than essential, difficulty quantifying sustainability ROI, and competing priorities for facility improvement.
Single-use water bottles
We identified the true adversary: the single-use plastic water bottle. These ubiquitous items were polluting waterways and the environment, creating massive waste in landfills, wasting resources to produce and transport, and representing an unnecessary expense when clean tap water was readily available.
The easy way to do the right thing.
Elkay had put a digital counter on every unit showing a running tally of how many plastic bottles users were keeping out of landfills. Consumers loved it and felt part of a solution every time they used an ezH2O bottle filling station. We reimagined the ezH2O brand identity to emphasize this impact, positioning ezH2O as “The easy way to do the right thing.” Rather than traditional product advertising, we determined a push strategy would have the most impact. Gentle consumer activism leveraged ezH2O Bottle Filling Station as a simple sustainability solution appealing to the emotional desire to help the environment and practical need for cost-effective solutions.
The Idea
We needed to visualize the impact of the problem and position Elkay’s ezH2O Bottle Filling Station as the effective solution. We embraced an eco-friendly stance that empowered consumers to put pressure on decision-makers, turning the digital counter into proof of people’s collective impact.
We created targeted print campaigns for vertical-specific trade publications, showing the stark reality of plastic pollution alongside the simple ezH2O solution. Each execution spoke to unique benefits for education, healthcare, corporate, and public spaces, making it easy for facilities managers to respond quickly to a solvable problem and earn a quick win with constituents.
Partnership & PR
We partnered with Chad Pregracke, founder of Living Lands & Waters, CNN Hero of the Year, and author of “From the Bottom Up: One Man’s Crusade to Clean America’s Rivers.” This gave us authentic credibility and access to real environmental impact stories.
River Cleanup Event
Working with Chad, we conducted an actual river cleanup that served as both authentic environmental action and powerful content creation. The best way to see the negative impact of plastic was to see authentic, and sometimes shocking, images of how plastic pollution is impacting our planet. We captured on-location video and photography that made the creative idea real and unignorable.
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Digital & Social
Our digital strategy aimed to build a movement. An interactive microsite allowed visitors to calculate their plastic waste reduction and cost savings with an ezH2O Bottle Filling Station installation. We developed shareable social content featuring Chad Pregracke’s river cleanup work, connecting the emotional impact of pollution to the practical solution. We precision targeted decision-makers with sophisticated SEO capturing high-intent search queries and programmatic display advertising reaching facility managers, sustainability directors, and key decision-makers at educational institutions, corporations, and municipal organizations. The campaign worked because every touchpoint reinforced the same truth: the ezH2O Bottle Filling Station made it easy to do the right thing, with measurable impact and reasonable ROI.
