Campaign: An Urban Story of the Plastic Bottle

Client: Electrolux
Agency: Lowe Public Relations

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About the company:

Name of the company: Electrolux

Market positioning: The Electrolux Group is one of the largest home-appliances and professional usage equipment producer in the world, with annually sales over 40 millions, to clients in over 150 countries. The company is focused on innovation, starting from knowing in-depth the real needs of its stay-at-home and professional customers. Electrolux produces refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines, vacuum cleaners and stoves that are sold as well-known brand such as Electrolux, AEG-Electrolux, Zanussi, Eureka and Frigidaire. In 2007, sales went up to 150 billion Swiss crowns, and the number of employees to 57.000 people.
Brand: Electrolux

Background:

Electrolux is one of the most innovative companies in the sector of home-appliances and professional usage equipment and also one of the most involved companies in consumer’s education.

Electrolux is focused on research and innovation, developing solutions for improving the quality of life and also for protecting the environment, by promoting innovative home-appliances.

Annually, Electrolux develops a large number of campaigns with a strong social component, campaigns which talk about acute problems that occur on the markets where Electrolux operates.

Electrolux offers to the Romanian consumer a number of last-minute products that bring high-value, both through design and their unique additional functions.

Through this campaign, beyond the social responsibility component, three products of this kind are promoted: Brita - refrigerator with water filter; Source refrigerator that produces natural water and sparkling water; Glacier freezer – that produces ice from previous filtered water.

World Water Day (22nd of March) talks to the public about a dramatic problem, always present in our lives: pollution of the environment with PET wrappings due to the consumption of bottled water. The phenomenon that will soon reach huge proportions can be avoided through recycling and usage of the Electrolux products.



Research:

The campaign is based on statistics received from an international level of the network and also on research from www.worldwaterday.com website, UN documentation, National Geographic archive, Internet research, and research on similar actions that happened previously at a global level.

• Plastic bottles are not biodegradable; they can remain for 300 years in the nature without changing their composition, therefore leading to a constant increase in the number of garbage deposit spaces;
• The European garbage consumption is estimated at 900,000 tones annually;
• It is estimated that in only one city, Arad for example, 50 tones of plastic bottles are thrown;
• At the moment, only 1.3 million Romanian people, in 21 cities, have access to a selective gathering system. In Romania, the annual amount of plastic garbage is of 331,000 towns. In 2007, 10% out of this amount must be recycled and in 2013, 22.5%;

Planning:

Objectives:

• Diminish the consumption of plastic bottled water in Romania and therefore diminish the pollution made by these wrappings
• Raise an alarm signal regarding the environmental pollution made by these plastic bottles
• To create in the public’s mind a link between the fight against the pollution and Electrolux
• To offer Electrolux solutions for fighting pollution. Beyond, the purely educational component of the campaign that informs people about recycling, Electrolux suggests a solution for preventing the problem: the usage of smart home-appliances.
• To make World Water Day a part of the Romanians’ collective conscience


Target audience:
• Opinion leaders/ press representatives and representatives of environmental organizations
• Mass public
• Electrolux customers, men and women, 25-50 years old, urban, high and very high income

Key messages:
• Bottled water has a devastating effect on the environment through the pollution created by the plastic bottles
• Electrolux offers creative solutions in order to think outside the bottle

Communication channels/ vehicles destined to send the message:

For the general audience
- national media of general interest (press, news-agencies, TV, radio, Internet)
- niche media: ecology web-sites, blogs
- Public event in the park

For opinion leaders
- Public event in the parc
- Press-materials

Contacts accomplished with the management team for insuring their support

The Electrolux team coordinated by the Marketing and Communication Manager
Lowe PR team (strategy, media relations, event)
The collaboration was fluent, based on a continuous flux of reporting and regular briefings between the two parties.

Moreover, Lowe PR developed an important lobby process at Sector 3 City-Hall, convincing the authorities by the importance of the project and obtaining in a short, record time all the necessary approvals, plus support in implementation.


Implementation / phases of the campaign:

The campaign is a part of a long term global strategy. This year’s initiative joins a direction established at the network level: “Electrolux, innovative solutions for thinking outside the bottle”.
Each Electrolux branch in the world chose to express its commitment to this motto through its own perspective on the concept.
Beyond the event and the media relations, the campaign has a long term strategy, through which Electrolux is focused on generating some significant changes for protecting the environment.
Next year, the campaign will take another step towards a better world.

Concept:
This year, the centerpiece of the project was marked by a special event on World Water Day.
The event focused on making itself a part of the Romanian holiday’s calendar and associating an environmental problem with a strategic day. The event was addressed both to the press and the general audience and was a pretext for symbolic manifestations and passionate debates.

The event’s primary objective was to show people the quantity of plastic bottles consumed annually by a regular family.

The event, having the concept: “An urban story of the Plastic Bottle”, was organized on 22nd of March 2008, in the Alexandru Ioan Cuza Parc in Bucharest.

Partnership:
The campaign drew the solidarity and the support of the local authorities, and so taking advantage from a partnership with the Sector 3 City-Hall.

Display:
During the entire day, people passing through the park and the media representatives could see a huge tower made of the amount of plastic bottles that an average family throws every year (almost 700).
Beyond statistics, numbers and pesimistic forecasts, people were able to become aware of the phenomena at its true importance/ proportions.

The participants could also see a themed photo exhibition: the life of a plastic bottle since its “birth” in the factory to its “death”, somewhere on a field, behind a block of flats or in a rubbish cart.
On two flipcharts, all the participants were invited to show their support for the campaign, by writing their solutions for recycling the plastic bottles. The best solutions were rewarded by Electrolux.

The kids present at the event received balloons branded with the campaign’s messages, while the elders received informative materials.

Press materials – the press representatives received informative materials and a T-shirt made out of recycled materials.

Evaluation:

• Over 1000 people participated and received informative materials
• Over 200 people wrote their opinions and suggestions about recycling on the Electrolux flipchart.
• The campaign’s messages appeared on three TV stations (TVR 1, Prima TV and Realitatea TV) and 4 radios (Kiss FM, Radio Bucuresti, Radio Guerilla and Smart FM)
• The event generated over 30 articles in newspapers (Adevarul, Compact etc), magazines (GOOD HOMES, ELLE Decoration, DOMUS, Avantaje etc) and online portals (green-report. com, stiri.rol.ro, smartfinancial.ro, newsreport.ro, atitudinea.ro etc).
• Estimated advertising value:
o rate card on print : 11,000 Euro
o rate card on TV: 15,000 Euro
o rate card on online: 1,000 Euro

Total: 27,000 Euro


The campaign generated a true public debate, both in the press and on the Internet (blogosphere) where, for a couple of weeks, the issue of plastic bottles was the subject of numerous posts and discussions.