Severn Trent Water ‘Thought Provoking’

Winner, 2007 RAD Best Website
Winner, April 2006 Ri5er

Severn Trent Water had run apprentice schemes in the past – but never on this scale. They were looking for forty people to join them in areas from Engineering to Finance, and wanted to get across the complexity of the roles in an interesting and visually-stimulating way.

When formulating our ideas, it struck us that the majority of applicants would already have heard of the company and, indeed, most likely would have been drinking their water for many years. Hence with the body made up of two thirds water, they would literally already be 66.6% Severn Trent. This led us to think about a variety of other ‘th2ought provoking’ facts, and we commissioned 12 eye-catching illustrations to demonstrate these across the whole campaign.

The result was a suite of colourful web-driving materials, all pinned together by a playful website which featured a ‘thought provoking’ quiz, bathtime game and ‘interactive home’, demonstrating a number of water-saving initiatives. With the young audience in mind, not only is the site entertaining and engaging, but the information throughout is clear, friendly and educational, with no management speak or jargon.

I used Flash to construct the site along with Craig adding animations, games, sound effects and an unusual navigation in order to achieve a fun, engaging feel. We also made a simple content management system so that the content could be kept up to date throughout the campaign.

In a two-month period, the website received more than 7,000 visits, with users spending an average of 12 minutes on the site. In total, 963 applications for the scheme were received, and all positions were filled in time for the September 2006 start date.