Keep Britain Tidy, the environmental charity that can trace its roots back to the 1950s, is launching its first TV ad for a new campaign tackling smoking-related litter that aims to highlight the damaging environmental consequences of dropped cigarette butts.
The charity, which plays a key role in encouraging the public to help keep the country’s streets, beaches and shared spaces clean, has appointed 23red to handle creative and PR for the campaign and Wavemaker UK to run strategic media planning and buying.
The TV ad, launching this week, highlights how each butt dropped can take 14 years to break apart, seeping toxic chemicals into the earth and waterways, leaving behind microplastics. Despite smoking rates being at their lowest level since records began, cigarette butts continue to account for 66% of all litter.
The overall campaign aims to encourage smokers to change their behaviour by demonstrating the toxic life a butt has after it has been dropped. As part of its strategy for driving behavioural change, the campaign will employ smart targeting methods to reach heavy smokers in the moments before they light up.
Focusing activity on known triggers and smoking occasions, it reminds and encourages smokers to “bin it or take it with you”. The campaign, spanning TV, VOD is launching this week while OOH, radio, digital audio and social, is set to launch in February.
Keep Britain Tidy chief executive Allison Ogden-Newton said: “Every day, millions of cigarette butts are poisoning our environment, doing damage that can never be undone. This is why our campaign is so important.
“Our environment cannot wait a day longer for us to tackle this toxic timebomb and we need to get the message across to smokers that each and every one of them has a role to play by doing the right thing – either binning their butt immediately or taking it with them if there is no bin available.
“The costs of dealing with cigarette litter, both financial and environmental, are too high. At a time when we are seeing a squeeze on finances individually and as a nation, as well as understanding the impact we are all having on our environment, we need to take action now. It is for this reason that we are so proud to announce our new campaign.
“We are looking forward to working with 23red and Wavemaker to help spearhead our campaign. With their highly collaborative, integrated approach and passion for purpose-driven behaviour change, these two agencies are ideal partners to support us in stamping out this issue, once and for all.”
Keep Britain Tidy was originally set up by a conference of 26 organisations in 1955, which had been initiated by the National Federation of Women’s Institutes after a resolution was passed at its 1954 AGM to start an anti-litter campaign.
Over the years it has run numerous cinema and TV ad campaigns backed by its “Tidyman” logo, featuring Abba, the Bee Gees and The Wombles in the 1970s and 1980s, and the “Dirty Pig” and “Dog Poo Fairy” in the 2000s.
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