Pennsylvania American Water announced today that it was recognized with three individual awards for its ‘Defend Your Drains’ public service commercial, which featured animated characters Fats, Oil, and Grease as uninvited holiday party guests. These fun and festive characters in their seasonal flair and ugly sweaters helped tell the story of how to prevent sewer backups in the home over the holiday season.

“We are very proud of our external affairs team and their receipt of these prestigious awards,” said Pennsylvania American Water President Mike Doran. “The ‘Defend Your Drains’ video underscores the importance of the proper disposal of fats, grease, and oil while also being engaging and entertaining.”

The Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts’ honored the company with Communicator Awards of Excellence in the Individual Public Service and Individual Education categories. The company also received a 2021 Silver Telly Award in the Non-Broadcast General-Safety category.

With over 6,000 entries received from across the US and worldwide, the Communicator Awards is the largest and most competitive awards program honoring creative excellence for communications professionals. Winners who received the competition’s highest honor, the Award of Excellence, include UFC, PepsiCo, Forbes, BoxMedia, WWE, Microsoft, Code Red, GmbH, Comcast, and Disney Creative Studios. Please visit communicatorawards.com to view the complete winners’ list.

“The work entered into this year’s 27th Annual Communicator Awards is even more impressive than in seasons past. This year’s entries are a truly stellar embodiment of our ‘Communication is everything’ tagline,” noted Eva McCloskey, managing director of the AIVA. She added, “On behalf of the Academy, I would like to thank all of this season’s entrants for their willingness to produce such boundary-pushing, effective and outstanding work.”

The Telly Awards honors excellence in video and television across all screens and are judged by a group of over 200+ industry leaders. The Telly Awards was founded in 1979 and honors excellence in local, regional, and cable television commercials, and non-broadcast video and television programming. Receiving over 12,000 entries from all 50 states and five continents, Telly Award winners represent work from some of the most respected advertising agencies, television stations, production companies and publishers from around the world.

“Defend Your Drains” was animated by Pittsburgh-based marketing agency Blink and is available on Pennsylvania American Water’s Facebook page and YouTube Channel.

Pennsylvania American Water, a subsidiary of American Water (NYSE: AWK), is the largest investor-owned water utility in the state, providing high-quality and reliable water and/or wastewater services to approximately 2.4 million people. With a history dating back to 1886, American Water is the largest and most geographically diverse US publicly traded water and wastewater utility company. The company employs more than 7,000 dedicated professionals who provide regulated and market-based drinking water, wastewater and other related services to an estimated 15 million people in 46 states. American Water provides safe, clean, affordable and reliable water services to our customers to help make sure we keep their lives flowing. For more information, visit amwater.com and follow American Water on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

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