Thames Water Adverts

By Rob Last edited 212 months ago
Thames Water Adverts
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Have you seen these yet?

They're all over the Tube platforms and the carriages themselves and they show some famous London landmarks such as Battersea Power Station and the Tower of London....except they're filled with gallons and gallons of water, complete with sailboats and swimmers.

Next to the hastily photoshopped image are the words: Saving this much water over the next two years (or something similar). Because, you see, the adverts are for Thames Water and they want you to know that "Together we can beat this drought".

Are they taking the piss?

This is a company who, despite a 31% rise in profits, failed to met their leakage targets to such a degree that Ofwat looked into fining them (but forced them to spend an extra £150m on pipe replacement instead, a decision we're told has nothing to do with the fact that Ofwat's 'independent' auditor, Halcrow Management Science, also has Thames Water as one its main clients), and whose current target for 2010 is to reduce the 894 million litres per day they're losing to 'just' 720m litres per day.

How much did the Tube ads cost exactly? And for whose benefit are they?

If there's anyone reading from Thames Water we'd love you to get in touch and try to justify this PR crap.

Last Updated 24 July 2006