CorpComms Magazine

Maybe the UK's water companies have hired Coleridge's Ancient Mariner as a PR consultant. They are certainly facing albatross-sized difficulties this year, and the phrase 'Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink' is becoming more cruelly accurate by the day.

Some might argue that a salty sea dog with a nice line in apocalyptic verse would do a better job than some people involved in the industry right now. As the end of a long summer approaches, hosepipe bans remain in force across the South East and the threat of standpipes in the streets has yet to recede. Newspaper and radio adverts exhort us to save water, while Hyde Park increasingly resembles the parched expanse of the Sahara Desert.

It has been an indisputably dry year, yet most consumers are not disposed to blame the weather for their shrivelled hanging baskets. Instead they have turned their ire on the water companies, who are leaking billions of litres of water every week that could be used to water the nation's gardens.

To add insult to injury, most households have seen their bills rise by inflation-busting percentages while 'fat cat' water company bosses rake in the cash. At the height of summer, MPs described as 'breathtaking' the revelation that Thames Water's former boss Bill Alexander had been paid £2.6 mn in his final year at the water company - even though it had missed its leakage targets for three years running. It seems that water companies are intent on flushing their relationships with customers down the drain.

Water waste

Richard Emmott, affiliate partner at communications firm Media Strategy, sees the current situation as close to tragedy. He used to be communications director at Yorkshire Water, which once had a reputation as one of the poorer-performing members of the industry. Indeed, ten years ago Yorkshire Water seriously considered the use of standpipes in Bradford and twelve-hourly rota cuts (whereby the water supply to specific areas is temporarily cut off on a rota basis), while its boss boasted about not having a bath for three months in order to conserve water.

Emmott is credited with helping to turn Yorkshire Water's reputation around, but he is worried that the current behaviour of certain water companies will ruin the whole sector in the eyes of the consumer - and impact his hard work.

'Does the industry have a poor reputation? If you had asked me a year ago I would have said not,' says Emmott. 'Water was one of the real successes of privatisation.'

Emmott believes that highly publicised problems such as companies missing leakage targets and Serious Fraud Office investigations into rivals Severn Trent and Southern have called into question all the actions taken by water companies since privatisation began 17 years ago. 'I think that is very sad because I believe progress has been made,' he concludes.

Drip, drip, drip

Ask a communications professional what the real problem is with the water industry right now, and their first comment is likely to contain the words 'Thames Water'. The giant of the sector has provided the media with nearly as much sport as John Prescott over recent months.

Although chief executive Jeremy Pelczer has yet to dress up in a cowboy outfit (as far as we know), Thames Water has managed to announce huge profits and leakage problems on the same day, speared a pipe with a JCB outside the offices of the Evening Standard and, in one particularly glorious moment, allowed the windows at one of its buildings to be hosed down on the day it announced a consumer hosepipe ban.

'They have shot themselves in the foot,' says Ian Haworth, head of media campaigns at Redleaf Communications. 'It is an impossible situation for them - absolutely a no-win situation. 'They have admitted that there have been decades of underinvestment, and now the consumer is being appallingly served,' Haworth continues. 'However, they haven't helped themselves at all.

There are bursts springing up left, right and centre, and they don't seem to be on the front foot. They have been caught out several times.'

The most striking fact - from a veritable gusher of bad news from Thames Water - is that the company loses 915 mn litres of water a day through leaks in its pipes, yet reported a 31 percent rise in pre-tax profits to £346 mn last year.

The water that Thames leaks away is enough to enable every Londoner to have a bath every day, and still have some left over to water the garden. Although the company has blamed its leakage problems on Victorian water mains and claims it is doing its best to get its message across, its expensive advertising campaign only seems to have made its reputation worse.

Money well spent?

Residents of London and the South East are faced with Thames Water posters using famous London landmarks to trumpet the amount of water the company will save. 'Our new pipes will save this much water every two weeks,' the company boasts, under pictures of the Tower of London, GLA building and Battersea Power Station.

 But the adverts, as the tabloids gleefully revealed, cost £1.8 mn - the price of replacing three miles of leaking water mains. Robin Markwell, press officer for Thames Water, claims that customers have responded positively to the advertisements. 'We have seen a significant drop in water demand. In June, there was enough water saved to fill the Albert Hall,' he says.

However, even the mild-mannered Andrew Marsh, who handles communications for the Consumer Council for Water, reckons the Thames Water advertisements 'look rather too much like self-promotion'.

Marsh adds: 'Consumers look at the amount of water that they can save and the amount of water Thames is leaking, and there is a bit of a credibility gap. The company would be better off giving people practical tips.'

Conservative environment spokesman Peter Ainsworth is less polite, calling the decision to spend almost £2 mn on the advertisements 'risible', while Chris Huhne of the Liberal Democrats says: 'Thames Water is wasting huge amounts of money on a bogus advertising campaign while polluting the countryside and failing to tackle leaks.'

Haworth reckons that Thames Water picked not only the wrong concept but the wrong buildings as well. 'The buildings they've used just aren't big enough in the public's eyes,' he says. 'Fine, it is a nice idea, but Battersea Power Station was the wrong choice. It has been associated with being left to rot. If it was the size of the Mediterranean, that might be enough.'

Damage control

Media experts might be scathing about Thames Water's seeming inability to communicate its woes to its customers, but all seem agreed that at least some of the company's reputation can be recovered - in time.

Haworth describes the company's situation as both 'impossible' and 'no-win', but he also thinks that a little bit of honesty would have gone a long way.

'They should have started at the beginning of the year and said, This is our plan to tackle the problem,' he says. 'I would be urging the board to do some repairs and involve the community a lot more when they are doing them. Right at the beginning of each year I would show people what the repairs were going to be. I would be completely upfront.'

Emmott also agrees that more talk might help. 'This is a company that only communicates when there is a problem,' he says. 'If they communicated on the issue over the year it might help.' Stuart Hyslop, director of communications at Sutton and East Surrey Water.Surrey Water, which itself has imposed a hosepipe ban (albeit less controversially than Thames Water), believes that water companies should educate children as they will go home and tell their parents what they have learned. He also feels these companies should connect with the community through local media.

While most experts believe it is too late for Thames Water to improve its reputation this year, they do not feel the situation is irretrievable. Going forward they advise that communicating little and often, explaining about the weather and being seen to be on the customer's side by offering tips to deal with shortages rather than expensive adverts on how well the company is doing could just be enough to swing public opinion back in Thames Water's favour.

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