Keep Britain Tidy: Bin It Or Take It With You

Keep Britain Tidy, the environmental charity, is launching its first TV ad for a new campaign tackling smoking-related litter (the number one littered item in the UK) that aims to highlight the damaging environmental consequences of dropped cigarette butts. The charity plays a key role in encouraging the public to help keep the country’s streets, beaches and shared spaces clean as the organisation champions the end of waste and improvement of places. It has appointed purpose-driven creative agency 23red and media agency Wavemaker UK to handle creative and PR for the campaign as well as strategic planning and buying, respectively. 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's 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 know triggers and smoking occasions, it reminds and encourages smokers to “bin it or take it with you”. The campaign, spanning TV, BVOD is launching this week while OOH, Radio, Digital Audio and Social, is set to launch in February.