This video is a Chinese advertisement by PUB that encourages Singaporeans to shower within 5 minutes. There are three main messages conveyed in the video. One – Singaporeans can save up to 9 litres of water for every minute they shower less. Two – Water is precious. Three – Audience may call a hotline to find out more tips to save water.
Importance and relevance of video advertisement
Even though the earth is covered mainly by water, it is important for us to understand that only 2.5% of the earth’s water is fresh water. (Gleick P.H, 1993). Also with the rapid climate change, many lakes are gradually drying up like Lake Superior. As such, we are faced with the possibility that we might face water shortage in the near future. Thus, this highlights the importance of educating the public how to conserve water.
Water, a natural resource can be considered a common pool resource accessible to all Singaporeans. Unfortunately, this may lead to Hardin’s “tragic of the common”, whereby people may simply use up the current resource without considering the reduced quantity of water available for others. The advertisement video could serve to remind and educate Singaporeans on the preciousness of water, and also ways they can save water.
According to the Protection-motivation theory, people will cope with problem adaptively using problem focused coping style, when they have high coping ability and/or high self-efficacy. If not, it can lead to an emotional focused coping style like denial or avoidance of problem. To prevent this, it is important to educate Singaporeans that even simple daily acts like showering for a shorter period of time can help in the water conservation cause. With an enhanced self-efficacy, an adaptive problem focused coping style will ensue.
In general, people tend to engage in temporal discounting; driven by short term gains. As such, the video could be even made more effective by informing Singaporeans the amount of money they can save with lesser water consumption.