WaterAid: Made of the Same Stuff
Creative director & executive producer | Catherine Rose
Director, producer & editor | Tadg O’Keeffe
DOP | Chris Turner
“The Ellie Simmonds film gave us a really nice engagement hook with new target audiences: tapping in to human connections and the importance of water for all of us. Cat led on the ideas and production of the film – giving us a really strong piece of content to share as part of our campaign.”
Tamsin Maunder Betti, then Head of Brand and Creative, WaterAid
Did you know we're all made of roughly 60% water? Water is what unites us. It shows we're all made of the same stuff.
And together, we're made of the stuff that makes history.
This was the core creative for WaterAid’s 2016 winter campaign ‘Made of the Same Stuff’. As Film Manager I was tasked with coming up with concepts for film to raise awareness. The digital team were focusing on the more scientific side of things with a ‘chemistry of you’ quiz. I found myself questioning what the other 40% is made up of, what similarities we have and why and how we could get the audience to care about this statistic and make it emotive.
We needed to quickly turn around the film and we had strong stories and footage from the recent campaign shoot in Malawi. We also knew that Ellie Simmonds wanted to become more active with WaterAid as a new ambassador. Given that she was gaining a lot of coverage due to the 2016 Paralympics it seemed a great time to try to engage her.
The pitch I delivered was to create a scripted film where we drew parallels between a girl in Malawi - Shayilini, and Ellie’s daily routine. We knew from experience with our Parallel Lives film, that building relevance through highlighting parallels resonated with WaterAid’s audience, creating conversation and impact. Thinking about Ellie’s lifestyle there were obvious features that could fit alongside the ‘water story’, that of getting up early, travelling big distances, the connection to water (albeit very different) etc. Also there were similar characteristics that she held with Shayilini such as determination, ambition, dedication and being tough.
Time was going to be a concern so we had to shape a clear ask to Ellie, but were confident we’d only need a strong sequence of her at a pool, and a voiceover to be able to make the film so it wasn’t a big time commitment to ask for. The pitch was a huge success internally and with Ellie herself and I led the team to execute this powerful short film.