Mediaboss Marketing

The Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game Division of Ecological Restoration is soliciting responses to pilot a Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM) approach to reducing household outdoor water use in 2 communities in Northeast Massachusetts. This pilot project builds on research conducted in spring 2016 that identified barriers and benefits for community members to reduce outdoor water use in the summer.

The Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration (DER) is interested in testing a variety of water conservation approaches to encourage community members to reduce outdoor water use, specifically lawn watering. While Massachusetts is a relatively wet state, a number of streams and rivers regularly experience below-normal flow conditions in the summer, due in large part to water withdrawals and impervious cover.1 The Ipswich River Watershed in particular has experienced significant flow stress, and estimates suggest that outdoor water use volumes roughly match volumes needed in the river to provide adequate aquatic habitat in the summer.2 Massachusetts is a leader in water conservation in many ways. Many municipal water suppliers in this watershed and beyond use summertime water use restrictions to limit seasonal increases in water use; many also use campaigns such as Greenscapes (http://greenscapes.org/), and a few use seasonally-adjusted water rate structures.

In 2016, DER funded a Community-based Social Marketing Benefit and Barrier research study in 2 communities in the Ipswich River watershed to better understand the social norms that drive current outdoor residential water use practices and to find ways to reduce the barriers and raise the benefits for community members to limit their water use in the summertime.

Those study data measured the current penetration (number of residents already doing the action), impact on wa- ter usage, probability of residents taking action, and applicability to the local community of a long list of behav- iors. The results of that research identified four behaviors as potential target behaviors for a water conservation program including reducing or stopping watering lawns during summer months. The research than determined the barriers and benefits for each of the behaviors and provided initial outreach recommendations to address the barriers and highlight the benefits.

With this bid request, they seek an agency to further develop and refine some of these water conservation strate- gies and to implement and test some of the recommended tools from this study in late spring 2017.

DER seeks a contractor who will help design, implement, and evaluate a pilot study of several outdoor water conservation campaigns, as informed by the Community-based Social Marketing Benefit and Barrier Research, focused on reducing residential outdoor lawn irrigation. They are interested in a Social Norms/Behavioral Feedback campaign as well as a Commitment Campaign but are open to other suggestions as well. Campaigns may include a subset of approaches (e.g. water use comparison, water use comparison and educational material, just educational material) to determine the most effective method.

Conservation Campaigns

DER proposes the expected scope of work below;

Develop Study Design including select appropriate sample size, develop baseline and identify control group

Develop all messaging and materials for campaigns:

Implement campaigns

Evaluate reductions in water use

Recommendations for next steps

Proposal due by March 3rd, 2017 by 3pm to:

Department of Fish and Game 251 Causeway Street, Suite 400 Boston, MA 02114

Rasky Baerlein & Racepoint Global have major Boston PR operations.

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Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game Seeks Social Media Marketing Agency - Everything PR