Plastic bag is the plague of our time. 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 as the largest supermarket 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, how could we effect significant behavioral changes on a mass scale to convince Tesco customers to regularly reuse their bags?

Following the government’s policy, Tesco has been charging customers RM0.20 for every bag for a decade, but the overall re-use is still at 5%.

INSIGHT:

The moral argument and the 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 .

STRATEGY:

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

By 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.

Due to low budget and urgency of implementation at scale - cost, speed and ease were paramount. We re-designed an existing Tesco reusable bag. No set up costs, no production delay, simply a change to the bag print design.

We created a unique design for the discount barcodes, integrating them into the form of the animals most at risk from plastics in the Malaysian oceans. The design style is simple and distinctive- to appeal to the widest spectrum of customers from young to old.

Sold for 50 cents, the bag has an unlimited rebate of 20 cents. Every time they re-use the bag it is scanned and 20 cents is taken off their bill. So users only have to re-use 3x to actually making a profit from their positive behavior. The bags are made of recyclable material, replaced for free when worn out and recycled into new bags.

The greatest reduction in single-use bags in Tesco Malaysia history:

• A reduction of 20 million single use plastic bags YOY = An overall 26% reduction in the total single-use bags.

• A massive increase in re-usage rates, from 5% before the campaign to 68% post campaign. Making our campaign 14x more effective in cultivating reusing behavior.

Commercial Savings & ROMI:

• RM 138K YOY bag production cost saving with reduced consumption and the simple cost-effective implementation.

• RM 1.1 million operation cost saving from mitigating the implementation of the Government’s mandate for all retailers to replace all plastic bags to Bio-Degradable bags had Tesco been unable to demonstrate an effective bag reduction.

• 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.

Unlike consumers from other regions, to Malaysians, the cost of convenience outweighs the cost for saving the environments. Through internal survey, Tesco Malaysia learned that even if the average Malaysians know the environmental importance, many (over 90%) often forget to bring their reusable bags to the store because they simply forget or it is too inconvenient.

Financial tax has been imposed by the government for a decade to charge RM 0.20 for each plastic bag to limit usage, but the country overall re-use and recycling rate was still less than 2%, placing Malaysia at the bottom of the countries in the world that practice nearly no waste recycling . Despite all its best intentions, taxing had not worked as behavior had not changed over the 10 years.

Malaysian Shoppers simply don’t mind to paying a RM 0.20 for a bag when they have a need for.