CHALLENGE:

The average Malaysian uses up to 9 billion bags per year . Shoppers are becoming aware of the plastic problem, but over decades of shopping have become addicted to the simple convenience of picking up a new bag every time .

Tesco Malaysia had halved the number of single-use plastic bags between 2011 – 2017, but the rate of reduction stalled, still only an average of 5% of all Tesco shoppers reuse their bag in 2017 .

Since 2019, retailers are further pressured by the government to replace all plastic bags to biodegradable bags. Though on the surface greener, biodegradable plastic is not a truly sustainable solution for our ocean waste problem. Tesco Malaysia key goal was to find an effective way to accelerate the reduction and eventually eliminate all single use Tesco bags.

With only 10,000USD (MYR 40,000) budget at hand, we needed a highly effective solution to effect significant behavioural changes on a mass scale to convince Tesco customers to regularly reuse their bags.

STRATEGY AND CREATIVE IDEA:

All Tesco shoppers have been taxed (RM 0.20 each bag) for a decade following the government policy, but the overall re-use is still at 5%. The moral argument and negative reinforcement such as punishing with taxes weren’t getting traction. If we were challenging a decade of plastic convenience, we needed a strong positive reinforcement that ALL shoppers could relate to.

One universal truth of Malaysian shoppers (of all shoppers) is that they love a bargain and hunt for rewards no matter how small the benefit is. 8 out of 10 (82%) are actively looking for bargain, additional reward or saving .

So, instead of trying to make shoppers feel guilty for forgetting their bags, we work within a more powerful and established set of behaviours and routine of chasing for rewards.

By simply adding a simple barcode to an existing bag design, we transform the bag into an ongoing discount that ALL shoppers will keep, continue to use regularly, and be rewarded for it. Our aim was to transform the humble carrier bag into a regular, habit transforming, rewarded utility. Sold for 50 cents, the bag gives unlimited RM 0.20 rebate every time it’s used. So users only have to re-use 3x to actually making a profit from their positive behaviour. Additionally, this ongoing rebate would be entirely funded by the 20 cent tax made to shoppers who did not bring a bag.

RESULTS:

Since it’s implementation in April 2018, the campaign generated an impressive reduction of 20 million single use plastic bags. Resulting in the largest reduction in single-use bags in Tesco history - an overall 26% reduction in the total single-use bags.

With a MYR 40,000.00 total cost, the campaign generated a saving of over MYR 1.1m in operational costs, which gives an impressive ROMI of 275% or for every RM 1 spent on the campaign, a return of RM 27.5.