Waste & recyling
ReLondon & SWP
The challenge
We all know how pressing environmental issues are becoming, and reducing waste and increasing recycling are of critical importance to local authorities across the UK.
ReLondon – the waste management partnership for the capital – were looking for a campaign that encouraged Londoners to reduce their meat consumption and food waste. This behavioural change campaign also needed to factor in the challenging and broad demographics of London, including its diversity of ethnicities, languages, ages and socio-economic statuses.
Suffolk Waste Partnership were seeking a similar behavioural change campaign, targeted towards local residents with the aim to reduce the amount of rejected recycling by promoting clean, dry and loose recycling (meaning no black bin bags!). The campaign needed to be accessible with straightforward messaging, as there is a range of languages spoken across the county and an ageing population, and also appeal to flat tenants.
The creative
For ReLondon, we focused our approach on inspiring behavioural change through emotions and convenience. We created a ‘What’s in your fridge?’ concept that targeted the issue of people not remembering what’s in their fridge when they get to the supermarket, by encouraging users to take a daily fridge and shop around what they already have to reduce food waste. This would be supported by recipes from real Londoners, ideas on how to repurpose basic ingredients, (like turning bread into croutons or potatoes into wedges with ketchup) and a recipe calendar that encourage meat-free options twice a week.
For Suffolk Waste Partnership, we created simple and memorable concepts that would be easily understood. ‘Tip it out’ involved a door drop mailer that you could physically tip upside down, demonstrating how residents should tip out their recycling from their bin bags. ‘Keep it loose, lose the bag’ used pieces of recycling to catch residents’ eyes on out-of-home adverts including buses. And for schools, we created a ‘Big Bag Wolf’ character to villainise the black bin bag in a way that would engage kids.
