Edina's WaterLight campaign, created by Wunderman Thompson Colombia in 2021, delivered salt-water-powered light to the Wayúu community and won multiple Cannes
ARCHIVEEdina WaterLight Brings Salt-Water Power to Colombia's Wayúu
WaterLight is a 2021 direct campaign created by Wunderman Thompson Colombia for Colombian renewable-energy startup Edina, designed to address energy poverty among the Wayúu, an Indigenous community in northern Colombia near the Venezuelan border, by delivering a salt-water-powered lamp capable of generating up to 45 days of light from approximately 500 millilitres of salt water.
Launched in Colombia in April 2021, the WaterLight campaign operates at the intersection of product innovation, social experiment, and public interest communications. Edina is a Colombian renewable-energy startup committed to off-grid energy solutions, and WaterLight represents the brand's most visible statement of that mission. The device converts salt water into electricity through interaction with internal metal components, producing a continuous light source that also includes an integrated USB port for charging mobile phones, as documented by Branding in Asia and The Drum. The campaign targets the Wayúu community specifically because they live in coastal and off-grid areas with severely limited access to the national electricity grid, making the product both a humanitarian intervention and a brand proposition.
The documentary-style social experiment format chosen by Wunderman Thompson Colombia allows the campaign to place the technology directly in the hands of community members and film the results, creating content that is simultaneously a product demonstration and a piece of authentic storytelling. In Colombia, where energy access disparities between urban centres and remote Indigenous communities remain significant, this approach anchors the campaign in a nationally and regionally relevant public interest conversation. The WaterLight campaign carries a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100, reflecting its strong creative and social ambition tempered by the modest scale of its documented public reach.
ARCHIVEEdina positions WaterLight at the precise convergence of renewable-energy innovation and community-centred public interest communication. The strategic decision to focus on the Wayúu people of northern Colombia is not incidental. The Wayúu live in the Guajira Peninsula, one of Colombia's most arid and energy-deprived regions, where reliance on kerosene lamps and intermittent solar solutions is common, as reported by Branding in Asia. By bringing a functioning salt-water lamp to this community, Edina and Wunderman Thompson Colombia transform the brand from an abstract energy company into a tangible provider of social change.
The campaign's use of the direct medium and documentary-social experiment genre reflects a deliberate rejection of conventional public service advertising. Rather than broadcasting a message about energy poverty, the campaign creates conditions under which real people experience a real solution, and then documents that experience. This approach generates credibility that paid media cannot replicate. According to Branding in Asia and The Drum, the device supports not only home lighting but also night fishing — a livelihood activity central to Wayúu economic life — and mobile phone charging, extending its utility across multiple dimensions of daily existence.
In the broader competitive landscape of purpose-led advertising in Latin America, WaterLight distinguishes itself from conventional corporate social responsibility campaigns by leading with a manufactured, functional product rather than a pledge or a donation mechanism. Competitors in the renewable-energy and social-impact communications space, including larger utilities and international development communications campaigns, typically rely on awareness-raising rather than direct delivery of technology. Wunderman Thompson Colombia's strategic choice to make the product itself the campaign closes the gap between communication and impact, a move that resonated with juries across multiple international award programmes in 2021 and 2022.
The creative execution of WaterLight centres on the documentary genre as both a production method and a philosophical stance. Felipe Santana and Gustavo Tovar served as creative directors on the campaign, with Santiago Jalid Forteza directing the film, according to sources including Medios Uchceu and creativepool.com. Oriental Films handled production, with Mathias Esmoris serving as executive producer and Jairo Castiblanco as field producer, as documented by medios.uchceu.es. Diego Caceres composed the music, and Ángela Blanco handled sound design, contributing to a sensory register that prioritises intimacy over spectacle.
Product designer Miguel Mójica worked alongside Wunderman Thompson Colombia and Edina to develop the WaterLight device itself, according to sources including medios.uchceu.es. This integration of industrial design and advertising craft is central to the campaign's distinctiveness. The lamp is not a prop or a prototype staged for the camera; it is a functioning object that generates approximately 45 days of light from 500 millilitres of salt water and includes a USB charging port, as confirmed by The Drum and Branding in Asia. The decision to film the device in active use among the Wayúu community, rather than in a controlled studio environment, grounds the creative work in ethnographic authenticity.
The documentary approach adopted by Jalid Forteza draws on traditions of social experiment filmmaking in which the camera functions as a witness rather than a director of events. The Wayúu community members who appear in the campaign are participants in a genuine energy intervention, and their reactions carry the weight of lived experience rather than scripted performance. This creative stance elevates WaterLight from an advertising campaign into a document of social consequence, earning the Epica Awards Design Grand Prix in 2021 according to Archive Adgully, and reinforcing the campaign's credibility as a piece of public interest communication.
WaterLight earned a substantial and independently verifiable awards record across the global creative industry in 2021 and 2022. At Cannes Lions 2021, the campaign received a Silver Lion in Design Lions, a Bronze Lion in Innovation Lions, and a Bronze Lion in either the Brand Experience and Activation Lions or the Social Responsibility Lions — sources including latinspots.com and Branding in Asia note some inconsistency in the precise category — reflecting jury recognition across multiple creative disciplines. At El Ojo de Iberoamérica 2021, WaterLight won the Gran Ojo in Innovation alongside Gold awards in both Product and Technology, according to elojodeiberoamerica.com. The Epica Awards recognised the campaign with its Design Grand Prix in 2021, as reported by archive.adgully.com. D&AD awarded the campaign a Sustainable Development Pencil in 2022, according to D&AD's own records.
No independently verified audience reach or media performance figures for the WaterLight campaign are publicly available beyond the engagement data associated with the campaign's YouTube presence, which recorded approximately 8,314 views and 67 likes at the time of submission, as noted in Clapboard's editorial records. This modest digital footprint reflects the campaign's positioning as a direct, community-focused intervention rather than a mass-market media push. The structural effectiveness of WaterLight lies in its delivery model: by placing a functional product in the hands of the Wayúu community in Colombia and documenting its use across lighting, fishing, and mobile charging scenarios, Edina and Wunderman Thompson Colombia created a campaign whose impact is material and demonstrable rather than solely communicative. The award recognition across design, innovation, and social responsibility categories confirms that the creative industry regards WaterLight as a significant contribution to purpose-led advertising practice in the 2021 cycle.
WaterLight is a 2021 direct campaign created by Wunderman Thompson Colombia for Colombian renewable-energy startup Edina. The campaign introduced a salt-water-powered lamp delivering up to 45 days of light from 500 millilitres of salt water to the Wayúu community in northern Colombia, combining product innovation with public interest documentary storytelling.
Wunderman Thompson Colombia created WaterLight for Edina. Creative directors Felipe Santana and Gustavo Tovar led the advertising work, director Santiago Jalid Forteza filmed the documentary content, and product designer Miguel Mójica developed the physical lamp device, according to medios.uchceu.es and creativepool.com.
WaterLight targeted the Wayúu, an Indigenous community in northern Colombia near the Venezuelan border. The Wayúu live in an off-grid coastal region with limited electricity access. The lamp supported home lighting, night fishing, and mobile phone charging, addressing multiple dimensions of daily life, as reported by Branding in Asia and The Drum.
WaterLight won a Silver Lion in Design and a Bronze Lion in Innovation at Cannes Lions 2021, according to latinspots.com. El Ojo de Iberoamérica awarded it the Gran Ojo in Innovation, per elojodeiberoamerica.com. The Epica Awards gave it the Design Grand Prix in 2021, and D&AD awarded a Sustainable Development Pencil in 2022.
WaterLight generates electricity by using salt water as an electrolyte that interacts with internal metal components inside the lamp. Approximately 500 millilitres of salt water produces up to 45 days of continuous light. The device also includes a USB port for charging mobile phones, as documented by The Drum and Branding in Asia.
Wunderman Thompson Colombia chose the documentary social experiment format to place the WaterLight device directly with Wayúu community members and film authentic reactions, generating credibility that conventional advertising cannot produce. This approach allowed the campaign to function simultaneously as a product demonstration and a public interest narrative rooted in real energy deprivation in Colombia.
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