Andy McLeod Directs New Keep Britain Tidy Behaviour Change Campaign to Stub Out Littering

UK-based independent environmental charity, Keep Britain Tidy, has launched an integrated brand campaign titled You’re not a litterer, in partnership with VCCP London and Cowry Consulting, one of the world’s leading Behavioural Science consultancies, created to stop people dropping cigarette butts, which accounts for 66% of all litter in England.

Directed by Andy McLeod through Rattling Stick, the TV ad features a judgemental duck who casts judgement on smoker’s behaviour without shaming the individual, allowing them to see the error of their ways. The duck acts as a silent observer, who can in a non-confrontational way point out how smokers wouldn’t dream of littering crisp packets or water bottles, so why on earth would they litter a cigarette butt?

Research revealed that although smokers believed littering was a negative behaviour, they didn’t see their cigarette butts as rubbish. It was this contradiction in thinking that allowed smokers to feel dropping the occasional cigarette butt was okay. Extensive research and a behavioural literature review also made clear that shaming smokers would result in them switching off to any instruction. In order to change behaviour we needed to find a way to modify their behaviour without alienating them. Humour is proven to be an excellent tool to encourage people to dispose of their rubbish correctly. Key to the campaign was also making sure the messenger who delivers such news is likeable and, able to cast judgement whilst provoking the right emotional response.  

The campaign will run throughout the UK across TV, VoD, D/OOH, social media and radio, until 18th December, with a second phase from 5th February until 11th March. 

Jim Thornton, executive creative director at VCCP added, “As a smoker who believed that littering was anti-social but ciggy butts didn’t count, I am the man in this campaign. (Not literally, obviously. I have more hair….) But I’m proud to say I have been suitably reformed by the smartness, wittiness and weirdness of Sophie and Miles’ brains, the deftness of Andy McLeod’s direction… and a terrifyingly judgy duck. If this campaign doesn’t work, I will literally eat my fag butts.”