Summary Of The Wasting Water Is Weird Campaign

Social norms are customary rules that govern behavior within groups of people and societies (Bicchieri & Muldoon, 2011). These standards manipulate people to judge the appropriateness of their own actions in comparison to others (Corner, 2011). The push of the green movement begun in 2008, and this brought a reality check to the social norms that people were abiding by prior to the movement (Lallanilla, 2016). The propaganda of the green movement that floods society is not only a mindless advertisement but is a prime example of how social normalization manipulates people psychologically to consider their own actions and react in a particular manner.
The effectiveness of the standardization of green actions lie within the advertising. The Wasting Water is Weird campaign is an example of this. This campaign uses a series of short
videos to position wasting water as something only "weird" people do.
In the videos a depicted villain, Rip, enthuses about the water being wasted by an ordinary person doing everyday actions that misuse waters. The campaign obvious implication is that if you waste water, you are as socially undesirable as Rip (Corner, 2011). The campaign had 429 million impressions from unpaid media and 29% of those viewers said that it changed the ways that they used water (Sheldongrp, 2017). The utilization of social norms is being deployed to make a "bad" behavior appear to be the choice of a minority, making people analyze their wasteful actions and make a change. Robert Cialdini, a leading proponent of social normalization research, ran a series of studies. He found that when hotel guests were informed that other people on their floor had reused their
bath towels, they were more liable to reuse them too (Corner, 2011). The social normalization of reusing made people feel more inclined to do what others of a majority do. Research like this is now being put into practice by some energy companies. A energy company called Opower, have used simple social norm strategies to achieve consistent savings on home energy use with their customers (Corner, 2011). This deception is quite simple. If every customer who receives an energy bill also receives information about how much energy they are using relative to their neighbors, they become more aware of their energy use and are inclined use less. (Corner, 2011).
Social norms are a vital tool for promoting pro-environmental behavior (Corner,2011). Campaigns that identify negative environmental actions as a minority behavior have a great impact on the actions of others. Since social norms greatly affect people's behaviors, humans feel inclined to act similar as the majority. This is because humans do not like to be observed as an opposing minority. The influences of the green movement cause people to analyze their actions and make changes that follow the rest of society.

References
Bicchieri, C., & Muldoon, R. (2011, March 01). Social Norms. Retrieved September 29, 2017, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-norms/
Corner, A. (2011, December 16). Social norm strategies do work – but there are risks involved. Retrieved September 29, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/social-norm-behaviour-change
Lallanilla, M. (2016, December 2). How Much Do You Know about the History of the Green Movement? Retrieved September 29, 2017, from https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-the-green-movement-1708810
Wasting Water is Weird – Bosch, Kohler, Lowe's, Procter & Gamble | Our Work. (2017, July 25). Retrieved September 29, 2017, from https://sheltongrp.com/work/wasting-water-is-weird