Situation

Despite plenty of bins, litter is still thrown on the ground, which contributes to an increased sense of insecurity and plastic in streets and sea. An increasing problem in the city of Malmö. It affects the experience of the place, gives the city an unkempt appearance with negative environmental outcome. Environmental damage costs taxpayers millions annually.

Brief

Create incentives to change peoples social behaviour to break the bad littering habit.

Objectives

We found that littering is highly irrational, and it doesn't help to have authorities pointing their fingers and threatening fines. To create behavioural change for less litter in city and nature we needed to reach the target group that don't care about littering. The campaign had to take place in the public space, attract attention and become a 'talking point' with a modest budget.

Regulations/Restrictions

With a limited budget. Previous signs and campaigns had made no difference. Also, the target group (mostly young men) have no interest in authorities and their public messages.

Environment

But we all live in the same world and litter is ruining it. Malmö's streets were full of litter, creating the feeling of an unkept and unsafe place. But what's worse, a coastal city with lots of litter means a lot of it ends up in the world's oceans causing micro-plastics which is a huge issue.

People

Starting with catching the interest from the main villains of littering was pivotal. This by entertaining the young who don't care about their litter and making the people they listen to talk about what's happening in their city.

Could we make placing trash in the right place sexy and therefore change the behavior no one seemed to have managed before?

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 plastic wrapper in a correct manner suddenly felt like doing something forbidden and EXCITING! Both to do and to share. Please talk dirty to me.

We conducted a number of focus groups to find the common factor for littering. We found that, to break the habit (among young men in particular), the target group had very little incentive to change their behaviour. 25% among them still would litter if no one was looking.

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

Strategically we wanted to make littering attractive, how weird it even may sound. And to deliver on this strategy, we needed a polarizing idea that could make a noise with a very limited budget. We believed that Dirty Talking Trash Cans in the streets and something to share on social media would be exactly that. If throwing trash could become naughty, we could achieve behavioral change long term.

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.

Scale

This simple function can be implemented in specific locations to have a direct impact on the local environment. And in turn, spread to larger contexts. You do something small while influencing the bigger picture by opening a door to listen to an encouragement.

The campaign went for four weeks.

Reduced litter in the city that created a direct and greater impact in the larger context. There was a very clear change in the cityscape, less plastic in the ocean, no wrappers in the parks and of course the most important, people's social behaviour changed. We achieved desired behavioral change both immediately on the ground and over time with our campaign, as it spread to our target audience's preferred channels.

Achievements

+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 and YouTube.