In response to California’s ongoing drought, San Francisco’s water agency has come out with a hilariously creepy ad campaign to make saving water sexy. In addition to the commercial above, featuring a water-efficient showerhead being stroked and a seductive male voice telling you to “screw them on,” ads encourage water users to “Make it a quickie” and “Get paid for doing it” (“it” referring to your shower and the replacement of your old toilet, respectively).
Unfortunately, new data from the state’s Water Resources Control Board shows that Californians need to be “doing it” a lot more. Gov. Jerry Brown requested that Californians voluntarily reduce their water usage by 20 percent in January, when he declared the drought to have reached a state of emergency. But the Control Board found that, as of April, Californians had reduced their water usage by only 5 percent, and Bay Area residents had reduced by only 2 percent. The state has yet to enforce mandatory water restrictions, though a handful of cities have. Listen to KQED’s deep dive on water reduction here.
And, in the name of water reduction, here are a few more ads:
