BUCK Celebrates H2O in Sydney Water’s Animated Ode to Eau

Global creative company BUCK has designed an engaging multimedia-marketing campaign via Host/Havas for Sydney Water that highlights H2O as a precious resource and promotes responsible water-use habits. The animated campaign is particularly relevant as Australia struggles with ongoing droughts and destructive bushfire seasons.

BUCK created six TV commercials, short animations for social media, and a series of static prints for billboards and other large-format media that target the wider-Sydney market. 

The videos are an ode to the love of water and all the amazing things it can do. “The objective is to get people to be mindful of their water usage,” explained Gareth O’Brien, executive creative director at BUCK, which is known for animation, design and creative technology. “And to demonstrate different ways for them to make small changes to conserve it during their daily lives in a fun and humorous manner.”

In each of the blue-hued videos, a woman’s voice recites redemptive qualities of water in poem form, as her words are brought to life on screen in a rather fluid digital animation style that mimics claymation. After reminding us that water is a precious resource, the spot shows a character conserving the stuff. In this one, it’s a tip to time showers to four minutes or the length of a favourite song.

The 30-second ad tags with 'Love Water. Don’t Waste It' and directs viewers to visit lovewater.sydney for more water-saving tips. BUCK used two different 3D programs, Maya and Cinema 4D, to create the animation’s metamorphosing objects, which inherited the behaviour of water with splashes, drips and ripples.

Sydney Water is the government body that overlooks Sydney’s drinking water. Australia is the world’s driest inhabited continent, according to National Geographic. The annual rainfall averages around 18.5 inches a year—well below the global average—and climate change forecasts suggest this figure could be cut in half.