What’s Your Watershed Moment?

 

As SGA’s first and longest-standing clients, the Los Angeles Stormwater Program (LASW) has accomplished a lot in terms of educating the LA city residents about stormwater pollution prevention. Most recently, SGA helped LASW create a series of whiteboard videos to help residents discover their watershed moment.

The series features six videos, the majority of them being 30 seconds or shorter. These bite-sized animated shorts each had a singular focus to ensure that the messages were clear, educational, and impactful. One explains what watersheds are and the importance of protecting them, while the others each discuss one of the top five pollutants (as identified by the California Coastal Commission): dog waste, used oil, over-watering, pesticides, and litter. Each video is about a person who didn’t understand how their behavior affected the environment and then learning about a simple change that could make a big impact. The medium of whiteboard animation was chosen because of its slow reveal. The viewer incrementally sees the design elements build upon one another until the final “big picture” is revealed. This method allows viewers to learn at the same pace that the videos teach while watching the story develop.

Once the videos were created and published to the LASW YouTube page, the next step was getting it in front of the community. SGA launched a promotional Google Ads campaign which lasted six weeks, achieving 10.8K views for all six videos at a minimal cost of only 4-5 cents per view. This strategic campaign allowed us to exceed the initial goal of 1,000 views per video by understanding the target audience for each video, the time of day that audience would be most effectively reached, and the proper ad format that would be most engaging.

Not only do these videos continue to educate LA residents, they are also being used as a training aide at the LA Stormwater Program call center, which handles pollution prevention-related calls from residents. Check out the videos below and discover your watershed moment!

• • What’s a Watershed? Why are they important?
    
  • Did you know pesticides tend to cause more harm than good?
  • Did you know that overwatering can pollute our waterways?
  • Do you recycle your used motor oil?
  • Littering can impact us all – Put trash in its place and protect LA’s precious waterways
  • How can picking up your dog waste make a difference?