Agency: Wavemaker UK
Category: Best content partnership
(Medium budget)
Challenge
Cigarette butts account for 66% of all littered items in the UK. With that staggering total in mind, Keep Britain Tidy’s goal was to normalise the correct disposal of smoking-related litter. In 2022 the charity launched its ‘Bin Your Butts’ campaign and by February 2024, 68% of smokers agreed that incorrectly disposing of cigarette litter was unacceptable.
However, 29% of smokers were still not getting the message. How could Keep Britain Tidy tackle the resistant minority? Many smokers feel stigmatised after years of anti-smoking regulation and campaigns, so Keep Britain Tidy couldn’t act too authoritatively. It was critical for the message and the messenger to strike just the right balance.
Approach
Keep Britain Tidy needed a trusted voice to connect with its wary audience. The Sun reaches 900,000 smokers each month and this audience heavily overlapped with the resistant 29%. The charity tapped into The Sun’s cheeky sense of humour with a four-month content partnership to deliver its ‘Bin your Butts’ message. To drive action, readers would be introduced to the charity’s portable ‘Butt Box’ ashtray, which they could order for free.
The scale of the cigarette litter issue was brought to life by contextual display ads next to relevant sports stories. A full-page advertorial interview with star of ‘SAS: Who Dares Wins’ Ollie Ollerton dramatised the issue, with key pieces of information obscured by cigarette butts. This approach was used again in an interview with reality TV star Roger Hawes. What’s more, The Sun took anti-litter campaigner Jason Alexander to Mount Snowdon, showing how cigarette butts blight Britain’s most stunning remote landscapes in an impactful double-page spread.
Results
Campaign recall reached the highest recorded level of any Keep Britain Tidy campaign, with The Sun readers 54% more likely to remember seeing the campaign. Recognition that cigarette butts are litter became the most motivating factor for correct disposal. Crucially, there was a 20% decrease in claimed littering of cigarette butts. Activity with The Sun resulted in greater uptake of Keep Britain Tidy’s Butt Boxes. Sun readers were nine times more likely to say they’ve ordered a Butt Box. Days with activity featuring Butt Boxes saw orders increase by 137% versus the daily average. Finally, the Jason Alexander DPS drove the greatest number of orders in a single day, 282% above the daily average.
Judges view
It was a fantastic campaign: brilliant use of consumer cultural insight data, a clear strategy and it effectively used the medium. The campaign was creatively and contextually delivered in such a way that it was true to news brands.
Helen Rose, managing partner, the7stars
