Com­mu­ni­cat­ing Respon­si­ble Stub­bing Out

Mulperi Media’s Vas­tu­ulli­nen tump­paus (Respon­si­ble stub­bing out) mar­ket­ing cam­paing at the Var­jo Fes­ti­val

Mulperi Media imple­ment­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions about respon­si­ble stub­bing out of cig­a­rettes at the Var­jo Fes­ti­val. Though the goal was to influ­ence the atten­dees, it was impor­tant that the mes­sag­ing pre­served a pos­i­tive tone: peo­ple come to a fes­ti­val to enjoy and have fun!

Inno­va­tion Tri­al

Mulperi Media test­ed how a com­mu­ni­ca­tions cam­paign about respon­si­ble stub­bing out of cig­a­rettes and the use of mini ash­trays affect­ed people’s smok­ing habits at the Var­jo Fes­ti­val.

The tri­al was orga­nized in three parts: a mar­ket­ing cam­paign before and after the fes­ti­val, a cig­a­rette butt patrol cir­cling around the fes­ti­val and ques­tions in the fes­ti­val attendee sur­vey about the suc­cess of the cam­paign. The slo­gans of the cam­paign were the inspir­ing and pos­i­tive excla­ma­tions “Drop beats, not butts!” and “Drop moves, not butts!”

In addi­tion to this tri­al, Zero Waste Fin­land also test­ed the use of mini ash­trays on fes­ti­vals. Read more about the Zero Waste Finland’s inno­va­tion tri­al.

Results

The mini ash­trays gen­er­al­ly received a lot of pos­i­tive feed­back dur­ing the fes­ti­val and the atten­dees were pleased that atten­tion has been paid to the cig­a­rette butt prob­lem. A lit­tle over 200 mini ash­trays were dis­trib­uted dur­ing the fes­ti­val so there clear­ly was need for the inno­va­tion and the mar­ket­ing reached the right peo­ple.

Accord­ing to the Var­jo Fes­ti­val attendee sur­vey, the cam­paign reached over 50 % of the respon­dents on social media, and about 10 % at the fes­ti­val itself. For exam­ple, a Tik­Tok video gath­ered a lot of atten­tion: 24 800 views and 607 likes.

The cam­paign also influ­enced the attendee’s actions. Aware­ness of respon­si­ble stub­bing out of cig­a­rettes had influ­enced 12 % of smok­ing and stub­bing out at the fes­ti­val. Over one fifth of the respon­dent smok­ers had noticed the cam­paign but already act­ed respon­si­bly and thus it did not affect their actions.

The com­mu­ni­ca­tion was updat­ed dur­ing the fes­ti­val when feed­back about peo­ple smok­ing in inap­pro­pri­ate places reached the testers. On the sec­ond fes­ti­val day, infor­ma­tion about smok­ing areas was added to the festival’s Insta­gram sto­ries and the atten­dees were encour­aged to use them. This was also men­tioned to peo­ple pick­ing up mini ash­trays. The job descrip­tion of the cig­a­rette butt patrol was changed on the fly to dis­tri­b­u­tion of mini ash­trays and spread­ing of infor­ma­tion.

Briefly

• The tri­al was orga­nized by Mulperi Media.
• The event was 2022 Var­jo Fes­ti­val on August 5–6, 2022 in Kuu­sisaari, Oulu.
• Com­mu­ni­ca­tion about respon­si­ble stub­bing out of cig­a­rettes was com­bined with dis­tri­b­u­tion of mini ash­trays to stop cig­a­rette butts from end­ing up in nature. The com­mu­ni­ca­tion received pos­i­tive feed­back and influ­enced people’s actions.