How do you get people to pay attention to a risk they don’t realise they face?
By John Burns – Associate Director
How do you get people to pay attention to a risk they don’t realise they face?
That was the challenge facing Flood Re as it approached its tenth anniversary.
More than 6.3 million homes and businesses in England are in flood-risk areas1, alongside more than 340,000 properties in Wales2 and over 284,000 in Scotland3. Yet awareness has not always kept pace with the changing nature of flood risk. Many people still associate flooding with rivers and coastal communities, rather than recognising the growing threat posed by surface water flooding in towns, cities and neighbourhoods across Great Britain.
Flood Re wanted to change that.
Its tenth anniversary provided an opportunity not simply to raise the organisation’s profile, but to start a different conversation about flood risk and resilience. The evidence already existed, but information alone wasn’t enough. The challenge was making a growing risk feel relevant to people who may never have considered themselves vulnerable.
That’s where Flood ReThink began.
Starting with what people value
One of the first questions we asked wasn’t about flooding at all. Instead, Flood Re commissioned research among 2,000 UK adults to understand which possessions people would be most devastated to lose. Family photographs, heirlooms, passports, birth certificates and important documents consistently emerged as the possessions people valued most. They also happened to be among the items most vulnerable to flood damage.
That insight gave us a more human way into the issue. Rather than telling people flooding can cause significant damage, we could show them what that damage might mean. Rather than focusing on water levels and risk statistics, we could focus on memories, family history and the things people would struggle to replace.
The campaign wasn’t really about floodwater. It was about what floodwater takes away.
That thinking became Flood ReThink: ReThink Risk. ReThink Resilience. ReThink the Future.
Creating attention in different ways
At the heart of the campaign was a long-form film following a man through life, with a family chair as a constant presence. Over time, it comes to represent memories, milestones and connection, so when flooding destroys it, the loss feels personal.
Alongside this, forced-perspective animation showed treasured possessions being damaged by floodwater, creating a striking contrast between what people value and the reality of flooding.
Together, the film and animation played different roles: one built emotional connection, the other created disruption. Both helped turn a technical issue into something relatable, memorable and harder to ignore.
Creativity is not just about making messages look different; it helps people stop, engage and pay attention.
Taking the story into communities
From the outset, Flood ReThink was designed to go beyond video.
The campaign’s creative assets became the engine of a wider integrated programme, taking the conversation directly into communities across England, Wales and Scotland.
The most visible expression of this was Europe’s largest advertising van, fitted with giant LED screens and travelling to locations including Manchester, Liverpool, Gloucester, Pontypridd and Edinburgh.
Content was localised for each location, helping transform a national issue into something much closer to home. Paid social activity built awareness ahead of each activation, while hyperlocal targeting connected digital audiences with activity happening in their own area.
To date, the programme has generated more than 32,800 recorded footfalls across five locations, with further activations planned. What began as a research insight evolved into storytelling, animation, paid media, experiential activation and community engagement, with the same idea travelling across channels, locations and audiences.
The digital campaign has performed very strongly since being launched on 14th July. Our strategy has been to run a national video campaign for awareness and engagement and then layer in hyperlocal advertising in line with the appearances of the campaign van.
While we have been buying on completed views or ThruPlays for the video, the local advertising has been buying on clicks via a carousel that tells the story of Flood Rethink. That, and a single static ad on the day of the van’s appearance has led to fantastic engagement. The carousel delivers key information around flooding in the area of the country that the campaign is targeting. Telling the story with facts and figures, yes, but in a narrative format with eye-catching creative and a simple call-to-action to find out more.
The campaign video telling the story of Flood ReThink and advertising the tour of the UK is going out nationally and has achieved 162K ThruPlays so far, at a cost of only £0.01 per completed view. The hyperlocal storytelling carousel and engaging on-the-day static ad has also performed strongly, with both Gloucester and Pontypridd achieving over 1,000 clicks through to the campaign landing page at a (far below benchmark) cost-per-click of £0.30. With the average Meta advertising cost-per-click sitting at around £1.10 in the UK, we have been pleased with the efficient delivery and engagement with the campaign thus far.
To further augment performance, we intend to layer in custom audiences of users engaging with the video as we expand the campaign. We also intend to break out the dominant older, female audience into their own adset for further targeting finetuning.
Three key takeaways for communicators
Start with human truth. People connect with issues when they understand what is personally at stake, not just when they are given facts or statistics.
Use creativity to earn attention. Flood ReThink made flood risk feel relevant by turning an abstract issue into something emotional, visual and memorable.
Make the national feel local. By taking the campaign into communities and tailoring content by place, Flood Re created a stronger reason for people to care and act.
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