Edith Chenault
Assoc. News Editor

Beth Barbee
Communications Specialist
Texas Agricultural Extension Service

Background

What Would You Do Without It?

Frowning kids sit glumly on an inflated dolphin at the bottom of an empty swimming pool. A man appears desperate in front of a row of "out of order" restroom stalls. A young man looks overwhelmed by piles and piles of dirty dishes. The photographs reinforce a poignant question: What would you do without it?

In this case, the "it" is water. In Texas – which faces a serious water crises – we needed to get a message out. At this time, we aren't going to run out of water, but we are facing serious shortages in some areas. Water also is becoming very expensive. Texas' surface water resources are limited and its groundwater resources are being depleted. In the year 2050, the state's projected water demand is expected to reach nearly 21 million acre-feet, but supplies are expected to be only 15 million acre-feet. The Texas Agricultural Extension Service needed to mount a water conservation campaign, and the 2000 What Would You Do Without It? campaign was born.

Farmers and ranchers in Texas are well aware of the water shortage; however, urban residents had not gotten the message yet. Urban dwellers, at that time, had been a secondary audience.

We felt there were too many tired, "Thou shalt not" messages out there, and people weren't paying attention to them. A fresh approach was needed, especially since this was an urban audience. We couldn't use the same methods we had used with the rural audience.

Also, we were aiming to make people think about the issue without lecturing them on what to do. We figured humor was the way to go. The material had to be designed with a more contemporary look to compete with the thousands of messages already out there and to catch the attention of a more sophisticated audience than the Extension service had reached previously.

See No Weevil

Eradicating boll weevils from cotton fields is an expensive and lengthy process-one that has met much opposition among many groups in many different parts of the state. Last summer, the program had been going on in parts of the state long enough to actually see a difference. The Southern Rolling Plains of our state was just an official declaration away from being labeled "weevil-free". Scientists, specialists and farmers all know that being declared weevil-free is not enough, they must remain that way. We were asked by the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation to create a plan of action to make both ginners and producers aware of the importance of keeping equipment and fields clean and to alert them to the dangers of contamination between zones. There was our problem and opportunity: how to come up with a campaign that can get the attention of both ginners and producers and get the point across.

Method

What Would You Do Without It?

We developed 2,000 sets of posters, 500,000 bill stuffers, and 60,000 educational and marketing brochures. A Web site at http://savetexaswater.tamu.edu pointed browsers to further information; there were 567 requests for pages during April 2000. We had started with a budget of less than $10,000; administrators were able to move more money into the effort for printing, and we spent approximately $25,000 for the entire campaign. Five news releases were written and released prior and during the month-long campaign (from mid-April to mid-May), with continuing coverage of water shortages and research and the drought of 2000.

Additionally, a new water logo was designed, and plans are to use it in every Ag Program-based water campaign in the state.

The primary targets were the top 13 populated counties in the state. County Extension directors were the primary contacts, but materials also were offered for use in every county in the state. County agents told us how many copies they would need, and we sent the copies directly to them.

We took a more serious approach in what we called the Texas A&M Agricultural Program's Water Efforts and Impacts publication. More than 5,000 were printed and were sent to all counties. They were utilized heavily in the month-long campaign. Extra copies were printed for in the legislative session which began in January; it was distributed to members of the state's natural resources committee.

We thought our biggest obstacle would be getting the preliminary work past the administrators who had asked us to develop the materials in the first place. After all, this was a sharp deviation from the business-as-usual Extension campaigns. However, we faced more criticism from county directors than administrators. One district director was critical of the fact we used the Ag Program water logo and did not use the Extension logo. However, one of the biggest praises came from the county director here in Fort Worth, who quoted a Gen-X'er in the office as saying Extension had finally come to the new millennium.

Our success hinged on our ability to find arresting photographs that would leap out and grab people's attention. We found stock photos, but their high cost limited us to choosing only two. As it turned out, photos for two of the posters were shot by an on-campus photographer.

We also had a extremely short turnaround time -- only a month -- to produce and distribute the huge quantity of materials to participating counties and cities. The internal hoops and paperwork also posed another major obstacle.

See No Weevil

First of all, we needed to know what kind of information was already coming across the table to both groups. What are we up against? Are we going to have to break through a lot of clutter and glossy, high-dollar campaigns? The answer was yes. By visiting area gin offices and co-ops we found that their bulletin boards and walls were plastered with information–and not just posters of rules and regs and new laws, but also flashy posters from chemical and implement companies. We also know that farmers are very well read. We know that they are up on the latest trends, and we saw the clever ads that companies like Novartis and Cargill were lining the pages of trade mags and journals with.

So.... what could we do to grab the attention of our audience and get our message across? We decided to use a humorous approach coupled with the use of monochromatic color schemes and old photographs. We thought the bland colors would actually stand out against the bright, flashy ads and posters that line the bulletin boards of the FHA office and the local gin. We also wanted an off-size poster. The ginners that I talked to told me that they are bombarded with so much information and ‘junk' that a smaller poster would have a better chance of actually making the cut to get on the board. So, we went with it, making our posters 18" by 20", smaller than the average poster size, but big enough to see across the room.

Why did we do it this way?
Originally we wanted to have a picture that looked it could have come out of any farmer's family photo album. We wanted to accomplish two things. First of all, we want the audience (producer and ginner) to relate to the picture. Secondly, we want them to wonder what that has to do with boll weevils.

The original idea came from the catch line- "keep it clean boys' with a photo of boys wrestling or fighting in a duty field circa 1920s. But once I spotted the dust bowl picture, I knew which way the campaign should go. Not only would farmers-especially in the plains where we kicked off this campaign- relate to this photo, but the dust cloud was a great visual for ‘infestation'. We used the catch line, "If only it were this easy to see boll weevils coming" and the slogan for the campaign became "See no weevil". We used the same copy on all the posters, only the photographs and catch lines changed.

Our second poster uses a photograph of two carpetbaggers and the catch line "Anyone can be a carrier of boll weevils". It may sound a little suggestive, but after moving in closer and reading our copy on the poster the audience will get a clearer picture.

"We got rid of them, now we've got to keep them out. That means never move farm equipment or raw cotton products from an infested zone to a clean zone without knowing they're weevil-free." We wanted the audience to think "what does this have to do with boll weevils or my field?" and judging the feedback we've received, the posters accomplished that.

The third poster in the series uses a picture of a couple playing cards and the catch line "We're still dealing with boll weevils". This poster was especially well received by ginners and producers in south Texas, where growing cotton is always a gamble.

The posters were complimented with informational brochures. One brochure was designed for ginners and the other for producers.

The most important question to ask about the materials is do they convey the intended message to the audience? We shouldn't ask them if they like the design of the posters, or even if they find the posters funny, what we want to know is does it get the point across. And the point we are trying to make here is that, just because a field or zone is declared weevil-free does not mean the producer and ginners can rest easy.

Results

What Would You Do Without It?

We did not do pre- and post-tests because of our extremely short turnaround time. Money also was a limiting factor. Additionally, because the materials were used in many different ways and at different times over several months, it would have been difficult to determine results as well as identifying end users.

Posters and marketing brochures were used in shopping malls.

We did get requests for materials from water departments in El Paso, Midland, Fort Worth and Dallas. That's a high compliment when they also produce their own materials. Also, the bill stuffers were used in the paychecks of faculty and staff of most Texas A&M System schools and agencies.

Ann Cole, now-retired Extension communications specialist, Penny Banks, Experiment Station communications specialist, Jeanna Pool, graphic artist, and Edith Chenault, Extension communications specialist came up with the basic premise behind the campaign, the list of materials needed and the budget. Pool designed the posters and marketing brochure and publication, and Cole, Banks and Diane Bowen, Extension communications Specialist, wrote the posters' copy. Banks wrote the individual success stories in the marketing publication, while Chenault and news team wrote the news releases.

See No Weevil

Because we are not actually spearheading this campaign- we just provided the campaign materials, our results are limited at this time. This campaign rolled out at the declaration of the Southern Rolling Plains as an eradicated zone in July. As other zones reach this status the materials will be used more widely. The materials are actually being distributed by the Texas Bowl Weevil Eradication Foundation. The materials were very well received by the Foundation as well as producers who have seen them and Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Susan Combs, who was pleased by the timeliness and quality of our work.