Water sector regulator Ofwat will seek to channel innovation in the water sector this February, with a new digital campaign aimed at encouraging water companies to fully embrace innovation and the opportunities it brings.
Going live on 6 February, Ofwat’s digital channel - titled Spark! - will run two programmes a week over a four week period with each week focusing on a particular theme. These will range from:
- highlighting the tangible benefits of innovation for companies and their customers
- looking at how to create a culture which nourishes innovation and creative thinking
- exploring the benefits of collaborating with others
- discussing how the water sector can keep pace in a rapidly changing and increasingly dynamic world
Over the course of the campaign, Spark! will feature experts from a range of companies and sectors including BT, Microsoft and Bio-Bean, each of whom will be sharing their insights on the power and necessity of innovation, in order to inspire water companies to think about what might be possible in their sector. The Spark! video programmes were produced in-house by Ofwat.
Over the course of the campaign, Ofwat be using the main hashtag #sparkinnovation on Twitter as part of the discussion about what innovation means for the water sector. Further theme-specific hashtags will be used for each week throughout the campaign.
The campaign complements other work Ofwat is doing around innovation, one of the main themes of the forthcoming 2019 price review (PR19).
Ofwat Senior Director John Russell said:
“Innovation is happening all around us; disruptive technologies and new ways of doing things are having a profound impact on our lives, our interactions with one another and our expectations as customers. In the face of this change, water companies must not only keep pace with the exciting new innovations going on all around them, they must fully embrace them.
Through this campaign, we are aiming to lead by example as the regulator, using digital channels to help water companies to learn from other sectors and to challenge themselves to think big about new and innovative ways of doing things, to ensure they are delivering the very best for their customers now and in the future.”
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