To attract and highlight the problem and get people to pay attention, we turned to where it happens. The trash can itself. We made sure the bin talks directly to residents by reprogramming the sound in a way that changes the experience of using it, as soon as someone opens the lid. The audio message was loud enough for everyone around to hear with a message that appeals to people's most natural instincts - dirty fantasies. They became Dirty Talking Trash cans!

Situation

Despite plenty of bins, litter is still thrown on the ground, which contributes to an increased sense of insecurity. This has been an increasing problem in the city of Malmö. It affects the experience of the place, gives the city a neglected and unkempt appearance with negative environmental outcome. Also, cleaning up costs taxpayers millions annually. Still, everyone knows that they shouldn’t throw litter on the ground, but do it anyway.

We found that littering is highly irrational, and it doesn't help to have authorities pointing their fingers and threatening fines.

Brief

The brief was to find incentives to break the littering habit.

Objectives

Create behavioural change that increases the possibility of a cleaner city for all by reaching the target group who don't care about their littering. The campaign needed to take place in the public space, attract attention and become a 'talking point' with a modest budget.

Our insights created a spark on an idea that polarizes.

1. Young men stand out as the biggest litter-offenders and litters more than older men.

3. An already dirty place makes people litter even more.

4. Social norms are the most influential factor.

5. Campaign messages about 'not littering' didn’t generate interest in the target group. Rather the opposite.

As the main villains are young, and mostly boys, we realized the uncool filth of the trash cans actually could become part of their most favored interest, filthy fantasies. So, with that ancient inner drive, which seems to peak at that age, we turned some of the most modern trash cans in Malmö into dirty talking dittos.

Re-programed trash cans using exotic actors’ voices with naughty messages. Throwing a gum away suddenly felt like doing something forbidden and EXCITING! Both to do and to share. Please talk dirty to me.

To break the littering habit among young men in particular, the target group had very little incentive to change their behaviour. A quarter would litter if no one was looking. It is also extremely difficult to create attention in the channels and media available in the city.

To activate, we looked at the people, who litters the most, their attitudes and values and their attitude towards littering. And, a major challenge, where do we best reach them?

Tactical choice, placing the campaign in the cityscape, close to the 'product' itself, bringing the city to life and emotion and interacting with people.

Research showed that young men wouldn't litter if someone they thought was "good-looking" was watching, and making littering socially unacceptable was the key to success. That became our strategic choice, using psychology, evolution biology, creativity and entertainment to inform and adress by making dirty talk!

Our solution was based on the mental intersection of sex and littering. We used existing selected smart trash cans with a digital sound source and we re-programmed them. Using sensual and sensual voices, moans and shameless invitations, the bins were opened 358% more during the campaign period, and even after the campaign period (38 days after) they were opened 330% more than before the campaign.The entire content of the campaign was designed to be shared and interacted with. Our target audience became our biggest social media influencers, not least TikTok.

We also produced an audio novell about dirty talking littering and the average listener heard the entire story, taking in a full five minutes and 44 seconds of popular education disguised as erotica - with an anti-climax due to littering.

The campaign went for four weeks.

Most importantly the behavioural changed, people we wanted to reach the most were those who were most engaged and influenced.

Litter

+398% increase in the use of bins during the campaign.

+330% increase in use 38 days after the campaign.

Reach

+563 million in organic reach on social media.

+130,000 people talked about the dirtiest thing there is: littering.

+140 international media outlets highlighted the campaign, including Trevor Noah and John Oliver, both world-famous talk show hosts covered the news on their broadcasts.

Target audience

+44% of men aged 13-24 engaged on TikTok.

- 62% of those who listened to the salacious audio novella were aged 17-27.

- The average listener enjoyed 5:44 minutes of the naughty audio novella (which was its total length).

We conducted a number of focus groups, in order to find out whether the lowest common factor between the sender Malmö and the target audience, young men was. I was simply just sex. A large audience from the target group was still in a number of upper secondary schools in the city. It was important for us not to have preconceived ideas about this group, which is so often blamed for different kinds of problems.

They didn't care much about littered streets, as it turned out. In fact, they only cared about one thing: filth. So we decided to speak on their frequency, and let smart bins appeal to their basic instincts - rather than giving them pointers. Malmö's intelligent bins would be even more intelligent, and even less mess.