A Community-Based Social Marketing Anti-littering Campaign: Be the Street You Want to See

Abstract

The “Be the Street You Want to See” (BTS) is a regional litter abatement program developed by the Bay Area Stormwater Management Agencies Association (BASMAA) in California. The program primarily targeted 14–24-year-old San Francisco Bay Area youth who had been identified as a key polluting demographic. The program, launched in 2012, applied community-based social marketing techniques to a well-defined audience to reduce pollution. BTS focused heavily on social media with the end goal of promoting peer-to-peer interactions regarding littering and raising awareness of its environmental impacts. Whenever possible, the program involved the members of the target audience themselves and invited them to recast environmental messaging in their own words. In this way, the content of the campaign remained fresh and relatable, and the target audience felt the program was talking “with them,” not “at them.”

Appendices

Appendix 1: Review of Barriers, Motivators, and Marketing Tactics

Identifying and overcoming barriers
Barrier	How to overcome
Social norms that encourage littering such as: Context: A littered/disorderly environment prompts others to litter Peers: Littering friends increase the likelihood of littering	Reframe the norm so that it is more aligned with the desired behavior utilize the norm of social disapproval, but do not vilify the offenders
FORGETFULNESS: Individuals may engage in passive littering as opposed to active littering; i.e., littering is not the intention; rather the individual forgets to dispose of an item	PROMPTS: Utilize visual cues near the trash receptacle to encourage individuals to remember to dispose of waste
Lack of proper repositories	Place additional repositories or utilize signs to clearly indicate repository locations
Lack of knowledge about litter: Definition (i.e., plastics are perceived as litter, but organics may not be) Fate (environmental/social consequences)	Identify the most prevalent misconceptions with regard to litter’s definition or fate and target messages to address these specific information gaps
Emotional states: Bad mood, laziness, hurried. These emotional states can make people more prone to littering	Elevate motivators to demonstrate that litter prevention is more important than fleeting emotional states
The teenage brain is still under construction	Capitalize on the extremes of teenage behavior (i.e., idealism) to create social change
Age greatly influences littering behaviors, even within the small bracket of the target age group	Make littering unappealing by demonstrating that littering is something that “KIDS” do
Identifying and utilizing motivators
Motivator	How to utilize
Social norms that encourage litter prevention	Align social norms with litter prevention behaviors (i.e., show responsible behavior as the norm and encourage others to follow suit)
Concern for the environment among certain groups within the target audience	Demonstrate through messaging that litter prevention protects the environmental integrity
OWNERSHIP: desire to be involved and engaged among certain groups	Involve the target audience into program design and/or implementation
The desired behavior resonates with the underlying cultural values of the audience	Incorporate culture-specific messaging in the strategic direction of the campaign
The desired behavior is perceived as being “COOL”	Allow the campaign to be “owned” by the target audience and encourage the constant change and evolution of the message and/or brand
The desired behavior is perceived as being “FUN”	Include playful, interactive elements
How to get messages across
Use ONLINE PLATFORMS as a central mechanism to message distribution
SOCIAL NETWORKING, ON- AND OFF-LINE: Empower the audience to become a vehicle of communication through peer-to-peer messaging via social networking sites and word of mouth
GET MOVING, GO MOBILE: Utilize text messaging and mobile advertising to reach the target audience

Appendix 2: Promotional Tools Evaluation Outcomes

Promotional element	Evaluation outcomes
Facebook	More than 11,000 engagements including 5475 “likes” (July 2014). In two years since its creation, the BTS page has achieved 150% the “likes” of the similarly situated San Francisco Environment Facebook page. The Facebook engagement far exceeded the initial goals of the campaign, and this success was due in large part to using social media to reach the intended audience (https://www.facebook.com/BetheSt/)
Meme contest	The program initiated a meme contest in early 2014 that took place on Facebook. The meme contest asked the target audience to develop visual jokes or memes with pro-environmental messaging. A total of 104 user memes (from a goal of 100) were created and entered into a contest. More than 683 votes were cast and thousands of views and referrals were driven to the Facebook page as users promoted their memes to their friends and social networks
Instagram	This part of the campaign attracted more than 1626 interactions with fans and 113 followers across 185 posts. Of all of the outreach channels used, Instagram proved the most successful in encouraging peer-to-peer conversations. While many Facebook posts received comments, Instagram was the channel most likely to develop long, sustained conversations between fans
YouTube	As with the meme contest, the audience (and more importantly, the audience’s friends) was asked to produce 15–20 s videos as entries. A total of 56 videos published on the BTS YouTube channel including 52 fan-submitted videos for the anti-litter video contest. This competition received more than 4800 votes cast and had 593 unique views of the 25-min awards show. At the conclusion of the video competition, the channel had received a total of nearly 16,000 views. Since then, total views on the channel have risen to more than 42,000, a 260% increase (July 2014). This element of the campaign suggests that the “participatory messaging” of the campaign will be operable long after the campaign organizers cease to design and initiate new activities. All 52 can be seen on the BTS YouTube page (https://www.youtube.com/user/BetheStreet/videos)
Mobile app	The app did not achieve the anticipated number of active players upon its launch. This shortfall is attributed to the development of the app taking longer than projected, leaving an insufficient amount of time for promotion. Here, too, the organizers of the campaign followed CBSM techniques: be flexible in your approaches!
Photo booths	The program developed a mobile photo booth that could be relocated across community events and allow fans to take pictures to be uploaded to varied social media outlets. For example, more than 750 photographs were taken and shared on Facebook. The photographs reinforced the social norm aspect of the campaign and literally “put a face to the campaign”
Website	The website has received more than 40,000 page views despite not being a key platform for communication with the target audience (i.e., traffic was driven predominantly to Facebook and Instagram) (website removed few years after the campaign due to lack of funds but Facebook page remains)