Use Only What You Need: Denver Water Campaign

When it came to cutting back on water use in Denver, people responded in part thanks to fines and restrictions but also to... good marketing.

Denver Water rolled out the “Use Only What You Need” campaign to encourage everyone to use less water - a lot less. The ads have included memorable images of only a small portion of a billboard sign being used, a person in a toilet costume being tackled during a football game’s halftime (for “Stop Running Toilets”), and an image of an elevator with a shower curtain in front of the doors that read, “Shower With Friends.”

A phrase like “use only what you need” should be good advice for all of us, ingrained from a small age until the day we die. If we all follow that advice, think of the savings we’d make as a society; savings that could be passed on to us, the customer. So give a thought to anything and everything you consume over the next few weeks, from a simple printout at work to a whole meal for your family. Use only what you need; take only what you need. Nothing more.