Content strategy

The story we want to tell: The aim of the project was to tell the in-depth story about what Watercare do, the important assets they look after for Aucklanders, and the highly skilled and passionate people who work there; to make Watercare about much more than a water bill and a highly paid CEO. It was also about engaging people of all ages, to get them actively involved in conserving water and taking simple actions in their homes and businesses to help protect infrastructure. Theresa wanted it to be engaging, practical, and fun, with non-technical content that still told the story about Watercare’s technical work. The content strategy and website structure were anchored to the Watercare team as people and the projects that they cared about, including community partnerships with organisations like EcoMatters Trust and projects like Trees for Survival.

Logic and structure

Stripping down the message: What Watercare does for Auckland is significant, looking after billions of dollars in assets, providing practical and essential services and working to protect the environment. Watercare is also rich in expert staff and leading-edge technology. However, Theresa knew that three key messages were the absolute foundation of Watercare’s story, and were the most important messages for the public. So, she developed the website logic and content strategy to tell this story in three ways – what Watercare does in the region to provide safe drinking water and wastewater services; what Aucklanders can do to conserve water, and help look after the infrastructure (e.g. knowing what not to put down drains and toilets, fixing leaks and clearing gully traps), and what kids can do, with this section including fun and educational activities, a Junior Water Guardian challenge and resources for teachers. Content highlights include ‘day in the life’ profiles with accompanying video content, guides to saving water, which were created from scratch for this website, and a range of free lessons and resources for children and teachers. Theresa wanted the website to have heart, to celebrate the precious resource of water itself, and some of the people looking after it for Aucklanders. and inspire others to do so as well, and to be a rich, one-stop-shop for anything Aucklanders need to know about drinking water, wastewater and environmental protection.

The Team

Concept, web logic and structure, content strategy, web copy were completed by Theresa Brady at Creative Content. Watercare's web design and build was done by Lucid Design, and video content was completed by Fluke Creative.