2022 Gold Sustainability

Agency: Total Media Connect and Kindred

Client: WRAP (Waste Resources and Action Programme), Love Food Hate Waste

Campaign Name: Wasting Food Feeds Climate Change, Food Waste Action Week

Campaign Overview

How do we break consumer behaviour and drive them to waste less food, in a bid to reduce the 6.5 million tonnes being wasted in the UK every year?

Strategy

The highest food wasters have traditionally been aged 18 to 34. But this had evolved, with 35 to 44s also showing more wasteful behaviours.

The team identified that the population can largely be divided into those with high biospheric values - the importance people attach to caring about nature and the environment - who account for 72% of the population; and low biospheric values, who account for 28%.

The biggest opportunity lay with the first group, who care most about nature and the environment. This led the team to ensure that driving the link between food waste and climate change was central to all activity.

Creativity

The campaign was fully integrated, with a single thread running through all communications: Wasting Food Feeds Climate Change. Relevant and topical messaging was generated around a newsworthy topic which amplified the entire campaign, delivered by the strategic framework.

It ran on emotive stand-out, an easy way to help consumers visualise the scale of the problem while reinforcing the link between food waste and climate change. The team created a ten-foot planet from 165kg of real food waste; equivalent to that generated by a single UK household annually.

The work was simple, revealing new statistics around consumers' attitudes towards defrosting and freezing food, and the impact it has on the planet.

It also created a social norm. WRAP partnered with more than influencers, spearheaded by MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace. The campaign leveraged Gregg's profile, supplemented with paid-for interviews with regional media, and a pre-recorded broadcast package targeting community and hyper-local radio stations.

Results

The goal was to drive action from 50% of individuals exposed to the campaign, prompting them to say they had actively changed behaviour around wasting food. Results showed that 55% took action, and 4.4 million people had changed their behaviour.

Pre-campaign, the number of people who saw a link between wasted food and climate change was 37%. The KPI was to make this 40% by the end of 2022. The target was smashed, with 49% of people who saw the campaign saying they drew a clear link between wasting food and climate change.

One in three people saw or heard something about food waste during the week: equivalent to 17.7 million UK adults. Some 32% saw it on TV, paid media and PR. Meanwhile, 30% saw the work through PR/print and online media, and 27% spotted it on social media.

The Team

Total Media Connect - Antony Forbes-Buckingham, Director Of Media - Bhavin Ladd, Account Director

Kindred - Emma Parrish, Business Director - Mandy Laws, Associate Director - Julia Riddle, Associate Director - Sophie Landing, Senior Account Manager - Elle Bracher, Account Manager - Chris Bamford, Creative Director - Jolyon Finch, Creative Director - Steve Moss, Creative Director