Using influencers to encourage people to drink tap water

Against the backdrop of climate change and dwindling water resources, supplying water to large metropolitan areas is becoming an increasingly challenging task for public authorities, who must find urgent solutions. One of the clearest and most viable ways forward is to incorporate recycled tap water into urban supply systems. However, despite being sustainable and safe, this option faces a major obstacle: consumers’ instinctive, psychological resistance. Now, an international study led by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) has identified a method that could prove key to overcoming resistance: influencer marketing.

Research led by Professor Inma Rodríguez-Ardura, coordinator of the UOC’s Digital Business Research Group (DigiBiz), found that influencers on platforms such as Instagram use sensory and emotional content to build mental images, and that this is more effective than purely rational arguments for overcoming resistance to drinking recycled tap water and encouraging sustainable consumption. Recycled tap water is not consumed directly, but is fed back into supply systems, where it is mixed with water from other sources and subjected to the treatment processes required for human ingestion.

The study, published in the British Food Journal, is based on the experience of 800 Instagram users from Barcelona and Phoenix. The authors also include Professor Antoni Meseguer-Artola and Gisela Ammetller, fellow members of the UOC’s Faculty of Economics and Business.

Source: Phys.org