One of my favourite sustainable and socially responsible based ad campaigns of all times is The Fun Theory Campaign by Volkswagen.
Volkswagen and its ad agency DDB Stockholm came up with a brilliant, eye-catching and both socially and environmentally positive ad campaign. They started with 2-minute videos recorded in Sweden, which captured fun inspired projects aiming to change the behaviour of people into a more positive one.
The campaign’s vision was based on:
“…The thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.”
One of the campaign’s video ads was the Piano Staircase. The purpose of this ad was “Can we get more people to choose the stairs by making it fun to do?”
On a subway, they replaced the stairs with piano-looking stairs and built-in a system that triggered the sound of notes when people stepped on the steps. The stairs were beside an electrical escalator and placed hidden cameras to see how many people they could get to take the stairs over the escalator. People were fascinated by the stairs and at the end of the day, 66% more people than normal chose the stairs over the escalator.
Here is the video:
Another one of my favourites is The World’s Deepest Bin. The purpose of this ad was “Can we get more people to throw their rubbish in the bin by making it fun to do?”
They placed in a sound system inside a trash bin in a park that detected when trash was thrown in and made a “falling” sound making it seem like the bin was very deep and it took a while for the trash to get to the bottom where it would make a “crashing” sound after a few seconds. People were so intrigued by the sound that they would want to throw their trash in the bin rather than on the floor. They would even pick trash from the floor and throw it in just to hear the noise again. In one day, 72kg of trash was collected in the bin, which was 230% more trash than in a bin nearby.
Here is the video:
It is hard to find attention-grabbing advertisement videos that are catchy and promote a social and/or sustainable vision at the same time. I believe Volkswagen did an remarkable job! The managed to catch the viewers attention with the pure subject of the video and accomplished to successfully make a brand placement in the most subtle way possible without throwing brand on people’s face. The drop a simple logo at the end of the video with the caption “An initiative of Volkswagen” and they let the social media do the rest of the work, as people passed the video around, making it go viral all around the world.
This is brilliant brand campaign that succeeded to associate positive green and social actions with the Volkswagen brand.
These projects circled around the idea that by transforming a bin or stairs into something that gave people a bit of joy, they transformed the experience, and thus changed their attitudes for the better.
To see more of the campaign’s videos, go to the official The Fun Theory website to check out more of their campaign videos:
http://johnstepper.com/2013/02/02/applying-the-fun-theory-at-work/
I’m a high school teacher in Japan. I had my students watch the video of the world’s deepest bin and read an article about it. A lot of students got interested in this funny bin and some students want to make one by themselves. I wonder if it is very difficult and costs a lot to make a world’s deepest bin. I would be very happy if you let me know how to make it.