“Yesterday’s post drew inspiration from a social media trend suggesting that women prefer hotter showers than men,” Hughes said.
“To leverage off this trend, we reshared a meme, highlighting the potential cost savings by keeping showers short.
The company shared a tweet to social media, saying “we didn’t just miss the mark with that post, we were miles off”, along with the photo of an olive branch.
Hughes acknowledged the offence the post caused and has since removed the posts this morning.
“We regret any hurt and offence caused and offer our sincere apologies,” Hughes said.
On X (formerly Twitter), the poster garnered 106 comments and reached over 59,000 people before it was removed.
“Are women the only ones to have hot showers?” one commenter said.
“Delete this, now. Good lord, it’s 2024,” another added.
Another social media user said: “Oh my god. Who on your social media post approved this.”
Auckland councillor Richard Hills also took to X to voice his objections to the post, listing a number of points wrong with it calling it “sexist”, making no sense and “not part of the water conservation strategy I asked Watercare to show me”.
“Deleting is probs a good idea,” he wrote.
Hughes said Watercare occasionally targeted particular audiences with its social media content to ensure it resonates with them.
“Men will not be exempt from our short-shower messaging,” she said.
Rachel Maher is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. She has worked for the Herald since 2022.
