Severn Trent and Because celebrate ‘Wonderful Water’ with imaginative VR roadshow

Severn Trent has kickstarted an immersive digital, virtual and experiential roadshow that will use virtual reality to engage children. The creative campaign sees the utility company partnering with Minecraft to excite and engage youngsters.

The Wonderful Water Tour – which has just begun in Nuneaton – aims to visit every primary school in the Severn Trent region in the coming years. The innovative touring experience is tapping into Minecraft’s popularity to raise awareness amongst primary school children (and their families) about the importance of water, and ways to prevent water wastage.

The extensive ‘on the road’ education platform has been created and delivered by Because Experiential Marketing and combines two interactive touring buses with different aims.

The Digibus is an immersive digital experience that uses VR to allow children to explore the sewers and water treatment processes that lie behind each and every drop, as well as a highly-intricate virtual Severn Trent world created in Minecraft. Alongside this is The Experibus, a roleplay experience in which children learn about the many career possibilities that exist within the water industry – from scientist to call centre operative to engineer.

Paul Evans, community communications lead at Severn Trent, comments: “The Wonderful Water Tour isn’t just about educating people; it’s also about inspiring people to come on a journey with us. Water is a wonderful and precious resource, and by creating this new immersive experience for primary school aged children – to visit with either their school or their families and friends – we hope to provide a lasting positive takeaway that will positively influence the behaviours of a generation.”

Graham Wall, UK CEO at Because Experiential Marketing, adds: “The most effective ideas make messages relevant to their audience. Severn Trent’s Wonderful Water worlds do just this by transporting an important real-world subject into a virtual world children love to explore and make discoveries in – Minecraft. Building water works on such a vast scale in Minecraft is a huge undertaking, but it’s this attention to detail that makes the Wonderful Water Tour so compelling. The The tour forms part of Severn Trent’s wider children’s education programme that currently reaches over 100,000 primary school children annually. Severn Trent aims to educate up to one million children over the next seven years about all things wonderful water.

The versatile education platform will be used to not only raise awareness about water efficiency and sewer misuse, but also the many health and wellbeing benefits and careers that exist within the water sector.