H2WOAH Campaign

The H2WOAH campaign was developed to tackle sugary drink consumption in the Latrobe Valley. It had two core objectives:

• Increase tap water consumption among 13-18 year olds in the Latrobe Valley
• Decrease consumption of sugary drinks among 13-18 year olds in the Latrobe Valley.

The centrepiece of the campaign was a series of activations in Latrobe Valley High Schools. These sessions aimed to increase students’ awareness of the benefits of tap water and the true costs of sugary drinks. Students were also given the chance to complete hands-on activities where they developed their own promotional pitches for tap water and personalised a label for their own H2WOAH can (a personalised drink bottle). In addition to these school sessions, the campaign also included a dedicated website, a social media presence and a competition.

6 sessions were run across three schools, engaging 94 students prior to Covid-19 forcing the cancellation of all remaining school sessions.

Despite this interruption, the H2WOAH campaign still met its core objectives. Baselines collected at the start of sessions were compared to attitudes at the end of the sessions to reveal:

• Students agreed more strongly that they wanted to increase their consumption of tap water after completing the session (Pre session: 70% agreed; 25% were neutral; and 5% disagreed / Post-session: 82% agreed; 14% were neutral; and 3% disagreed.)
• Students agreed more strongly that they wanted to decrease their consumption of sugary drinks after completing the session (Pre-session: 59% agreed; 27% were neutral; and 14% disagreed / Post-session: 67% agreed; 24% were neutral; and 9% disagreed)