Singapore's PUB tugs on heartstrings to draw attention to the importance of water
Singapore’s Public Utilities Board (PUB) has released an emotive campaign for Hari Raya that tells the story of two young brothers who separated and eventually found resolution through forgiveness.
The campaign, called ‘Kinship’ and created by DDB for the national water agency, is a six-minute short film that aims to highlight that water is precious in land-scarce Singapore. The country aims to be water self-sufficient before its 1962 long-term water supply agreement with Malaysia expires in 2061.
In the film, two orphaned brothers, Din and Zul, grow up in an orphanage in the 1960s and do everything, from brushing their teeth to playing by a reservoir, together.
However, Zul turns hostile after learning that his elder brother Din would soon be adopted and ignores the latter. The pair part on the morning of Hari Raya without saying a word to each other.
The film then time jumps to the present day, where Din returns to the same reservoir with his son and sees a message of forgiveness on a piece of wood that Zul had carved years ago.
According to PUB, the campaign is different from its previous campaigns, which focused on the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of water conservation. For this campaign, it was inspired by the Malay proverb ‘air dicincang tidak akan putus’, which loosely translates as “water doesn’t break apart when you chop it”.
It said the campaign emphasizes that no matter what tribulations family members may go through, the bonds between them can never be broken.
“We have refreshed this year’s water conservation campaign with a focus on the amount of effort and processes behind the making of water, to show how every drop of water does not come easy,” said Cindy Keng, the director of 3P (people, private and public sectors) network at PUB.
“With Kinship, it is a different and softer approach, appealing to people’s emotions to convey our water messages. In a subtle way, by drawing a parallel between water and kinship, we hope to evoke thoughts and reflections about how we should treasure and appreciate precious things in life such as relationships and water.”
The video has already drawn more than 530,000 views on Facebook, 10,000 likes, 800 comments and 8,000 shares.
