ABOUT

Challenge faced
Cigarette butts are the most littered item in the UK, and among the most damaging to the environment, leaching microplastics and toxins into the environment for up to 14 years with deadly effects on biodiversity.

Keep Britain Tidy wants smokers to dispose of their butts in bins, but getting smokers to act differently is about as tough as behaviour change gets - heavy smokers have proved themselves immune to decades of the most thorough and dedicated governmental and charity behaviour change interventions ever seen.

We required new insight and creativity, based on the most rigorous research methods available, using empirically validated findings to persuade the previously unpersuadable.


Desired outcomes
Today’s heavy smokers are experts in ignoring messages telling them what to do: we needed to create a campaign that empathised with rather than demonised, that our audience warmed to rather than rejected

Cigarette butts are apparently insignificant compared to other litter, so we needed smokers to agree with the statement that cigarette butts are rubbish.

To be truly effective, we we needed to not just change attitudes, but drive, and find evidence for, actual behaviour change


Approach
To persuade the unpersuadable, we worked with behavioural scientist partner Cowry Consulting to develop the most thorough and empirically-grounded research process yet undertaken for a UK littering campaign.

Stage 1 was a deep dive into the academic literature of smoking, littering and behaviour change campaigns.

Stage 2 sought to more deeply understand smokers’ feelings and motivations, we used facial expression analysis.


Stage 3 was an Implicit Response Test (IRT) of near-finished assets.

Our research gave us the confidence to find a more engaging way to reach this trickiest of audience than the traditional finger-pointing approach: with empathy and humour.

So, in our campaign, a likeably cast and generally-non-littering smoker is taught the error of his ways by a silently judgy, vaguely threatening, duck.

The way in which the campaign message is delivered is both surreal and ridiculous. However, this humorous approach is what cuts through. It keeps the tone light, while at the same time landing our message directly.

Measurable results

- Awareness of our campaign reached 49%, a third higher than previous work
- 81% of smokers liked the campaign
- After seeing the work, 9 out of 10 smokers said they'd get rid of their butt properly
- 77% of people who recalled the campaign, took at least one action, with 16% claiming to have bought a product to help them dispose correctly.
A 2 year Behavioural Intervention Programme gives us confidence that our tracking results are translating into real world difference, measuring a 20% increase in the numbers of cigarettes being binned, with campaign visuals being the only variable.
We calculate that this equates to 135,000 fewer littered butts, just in our town centres, at any one time, meaning the campaign would pay for itself purely in terms of urban cost of clean up.

But this figure is a significant underestimate. It is the wider impact on biodiversity and ecological health where the real costs, and the real benefits of our campaign, are greatest.